I Love You, My Enemy
by memoire-blanche
Summary: Alternative end of Season 4. After freeing William the gang doesn't know how to stop XANA. Soon a series of weird occurences happen. It appears that Aelita has a secret admirer... Who is he? What consequences will it have?
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Here I proudly present you my first, oldest (and so far, longest) fanfic! I started this story more than 2 years ago and finished about a year ago, but it was not until now that I finally translated it into English and decided to publish it. My main motivation for writing this story was that I did not feel satisfied after watching the season 4 finale. And so, out of rage and curiosity about "what if...?" this story was created. Now, judging it from the perspective of 2 years since I started working on it, reading lots of other fanfics and "season 5"'s, and further considerations I find it... immature, to say the least. So, do not be so hard on me, because back then, I really was angry and disappointed at how Code Lyoko ended, and I appeared to have a couple of crazy ideas I decided to put into existence in the form of this story. To sum up... I hope you enjoy reading, despite all its flaws.

**CHAPTER 1**

One sunny and warm afternoon Aelita, Jeremie, Odd, Ulrich, Yumi and William were sitting on the school grounds on their favourite bench in the shadow of a branchy lime tree and were trying to comprehend the events of past few days. William listened carefully to the rest of the group; they were discussing XANA's plans of enslaving the mankind by using thousands of Replikas and robots which were waiting for orders in the middle of nowhere.

After freeing William from XANA, the group told him the story of everything that happened during the last six months. They described _that_ William with details as a cruel and merciless but at the same time dependent executor of XANA's wicked plans.

Horror and shame rose in William's mind along with anger not only towards XANA, but also towards himself. The memory of the day when he joined the group and was virtualized on Lyoko for the first time was haunting him. How could he let himself be possessed by a mad A.I.? Due to his self-confidence and pride – the two flaws he'd always coped with – he became someone he could not imagine in his worst nightmares. "I'm not a bad guy type," he thought. Of course he would tell some bitter words to someone if he really deserved it, but it would never cross his mind to harm anyone, especially people he considered as his friends!

He looked at their thougtful and worried faces. At first he glanced at Aelita, who undoubtedly was the most conspicuous member of the gang. "I wouldn't dare do any harm to her," he wondered as he observed her, so fragile-looking, so experienced by life, but always smiling and proudly wearing her pink hair. But then, under XANA's control, she was his worst enemy, whom he tortured before throwing into the digital sea to get rid of her along with her father!

He stopped his sight at Ulrich. They fought with each other the most, according to the descriptions of the group. In the beginning Wiliam felt weird satisfaction that he could revenge on his rival in the race to Yumi, but when he calmed down and realised that he had no chance against him he realised that Ulrich did not deserve that. After inviting him to the go-kart club a long time ago, he realised that Ulrich's actually a nice guy.

Then he finally looked at Yumi. He liked her. They were in the same grade and she was always helping him at schoolwork. He even had a crush on her! And once she almost ended up in the digital sea, thanks to him!

Finally he started observing Odd who played with his dog's rubber ball, which bouncing sound irritated Jeremie. William had to admit that even though Odd's weird lifestyle and scathing retorts appeared sometimes very annoying, he was everybody's friend. As far as Einstein was concerned, William had always had respect to him. He was the best student in the whole school, always had the highest average and had knowledge that not only older students, but also some teachers could be jealous of. Whenever William heard name Belpois, he always looked up to him. Therefore bigger was his shock when he found out that the same Belpois had been fighting for life and death with a mighty enemy XANA.

He remembered clearly the moment when he discovered the biggest secret of a group of these inseparable friends. He remembered excitement when he went into the scanner and in few minutes set foot in a virtual world better than any video game he had ever played. He remembered the joy with which he beat those Creepers at one stroke of his great sword. But then that weird monster appeared and having trapped him in its tentacles, it transformed him into _that _William.

He was ashamed of himself when he memorized his friends' advice and warnings and realised that he let them down forever. He still felt their reserve towards him except Aelita, who, due to her trust and wilingness to give him second chance, let him hang out with them. A will of revenge rose in William as he became aware of how XANA used him, robbed him of half a year of his life, not mentioning lacks at school. "I won't let you down anymore," he thought, looking at his friends, "I'll help you defeat XANA once and for all."

The group was sitting and talking when suddenly Jeremie's computer, which laid closed on his lap, gave a well-known beep, signaling that the Superscan detected an activated tower. The sound immediately attracted everyone's attention. Jeremie opened the laptop. The rest of the group looked at him with worry.

"Activated tower in the polar region. To the factory!" Jeremie announced.

Yumi glanced at her mobile to check the time, when she realised something. "Oh no, I can't go with you, I'm having a test in Italian in a few minutes. It's my last chance," she explained.

"I'm having a test too, in Math. The one I didn't pass last time," Odd recalled all of a sudden.

"We'll manage without you," Aelita calmed them down."William can replace you."

"William...?" Ulrich said in disbelief. "After all that...?"

"Ulrich, we don't know what XANA prepared for us. Are you sure we'll manage on our own?"

Ulrich looked at William at first, then back to Aelita.

"Fine, he can go," he answered after a while.

"Let's not waste time then. The sooner we take care of the tower, the better," Jeremie concluded. He closed the laptop and stood up, ready to leave.

"Good luck," said Yumi.

"You too, I mean on the tests," Ulrich replied.

They all got up and divided. Odd and Yumi headed towards the school, whereas the rest ran quickly to the factory.

Having gone through well-known sewers and secret passages, they arrived at the lab.

Aelita, Ulrich and William went down with the elevator to the scanner room and Jeremie started the vrtualization procedures.

"Are you ready? Here we go!" They heard his voice through the speaker in the scanner room.

"Transfer: Aelita! Transfer: Ulrich! Transfer: William!"

Information confirming successful scan appeared on Jeremie's screen.

"Virtualization!"

A while afterwards his three friends appeared on a plateau near an ice cave.

Ulrich and Aelita looked at William. He looked at himself and carefully checked out his old-new virtual form. He wore the same outfit he had when he was on Lyoko for the first time.

The overbike and overwing appeared in front of the three wariors in a second.

"The tower is not far. Direction south-east," Jeremie informed them. Ulrich sat down on the overbike and William jumped on an overwing.

"Nice to see you on our side, William," Aelita said and spread her wings. William smiled to her. Ulrich grunted quietly.

"Hey, how do you drive it?" William asked, looking at the handle of the overwing.

"It's simple, just take a hold and go!" Aelita replied.

"You don't know how? You've driven it once before..." said Ulrich spitefully.

"Let's go," Aelita ordered, pretending not to had heard that.

They moved with their vehicles. Aelita and Ulrich went first. William needed some time to work out how to steer the overwing and soon caught up with them.

"It's quiet around here, isn't it?" William was suprised that they had not met a single monster yet.

"Uh-oh, it's starting..." Ulrich sneered.

"Cool it, Ulrich," Aelita thought as she heard his bitter comment again. "You know William, XANA does not attack immediately. He likes to surprise," she explained to him as she noticed that he in fact had little experience on Lyoko.

William took a look around and noticed an inactive tower on a neighbouring plateau.

"Hey, there's a tower."

"Yep, but it's not activated. You see, it has a white aura around it. An activated tower has a red one," Aelita explained again.

"Jeremie, we're on it!" Ulrich announced as the activated tower appeared in front of him. "Are there any monsters guarding it?"

"Great. No, not a single one, " he heard Jeremie's voice.

"But that's strange, knowing XANA's habits they should've appeared already."

"Ulrich, why are you complaining?" William asked quietly but loud enough to be heard by Ulrich. He grimaced. "Since when has he become so humble?" he wondered.

Eventually they arrived at the tower. There was no slight sign of any monster.

"Too good to be true." Ulrich pulled out his two swords, which he did rather habitually than from a real necessity.

"Maybe that tower is not activated?" William said.

"William, it could turn out that there's no activated tower if the Superscan which detects them is bugged up," Aelita responded, "but if we're on Lyoko and we see a red tower, then it has to be activated!"

"I still can't believe it," Ulrich got annoyed. Jeremie became impatient.

"Aelita, this tower is activated, go and deactivate it! It doesn't matter whether XANA sends monsters or not, you know very well that..."

He remained silent when he recalled the Syberian laboratory and hundreds of robots. He was about to say that one tower on Lyoko did not mean anything for XANA anymore, but he bit his tongue. Aelita guessed what he wanted to say.

"OK, if I did this n times, I'll do n plus one as well." She went into the tower and laid her hand on the interface. She observed as signs 'AELITA' and 'CODE LYOKO' appeared on it, as usual.

"Tower... deactivated?" She said with a little of uncertainty in her voice.

At the same time the boys outside observed the red aura around the tower turn white.

Aelita went out of the tower. The three looked at each other, still not believing what had happened. Ulrich looked up into the sky.

"It's OK Jeremie, mission accomplished. You can rematerialize us now."

In the evening the group met again in Jeremie's room. When Aelita told Odd and Yumi about what happened on Lyoko, or rather, what did _not_ happen, they just opened their eyes wide from astonishment.

"Jeremie, there weren't any monsters at all?" Yumi asked.

"Yeah, there was nothing. I checked the entire sector," Jeremie assured.

"But the tower was activated, it was real," Aelita added.

"Maybe William scared the monsters off?" Odd joked.

"I don't know," Jeremie gasped. "One thing is sure, it's totally against what was obvious for the past two years of XANA's attacks. Besides, remember that Franz Hopper is still alive and remains a major threat to XANA, so there'd be no point for him to lure us to Lyoko without attempting to throw Aelita into the digital sea..."

These last words sounded weird as Jeremie spoke them. Eveybody knew it was the last thing he wished himself.

"Einstein, stop telling us such things or we're going to have nightmares," Odd joked.

"Sometimes you have to think like your enemy to understand his motives," Jeremie replied, taking him seriously.

"Fine, but I don't see any motive in the present situation. Nothing weird happened on Earth, did it?" Ulrich said, turning towards Odd and Yumi.

"Nothing, except that all tasks on my Math test appeared to me as rather difficult," Odd said.

"That is not a surprise to me, as additional tests of Mrs Meyer are always harder than the first attempt."

"And you're telling me this now, Ulrich? If I had known, I'd have prepared myself better."

"And since when would you study for any test?"

"Back on topic, what if XANA attacked, but we don't know about it?" William interrupted all of a sudden.

"I don't think so. I can try and launch my old programme for tracking disasters, but it does not give 100 percent certainty," Jeremie said.

"Hey guys, how about sleeping this problem over? I'm tired..." Aelita yawned. She certainly looked worn out.

"Good idea. Besides, it's kind of late, I have to go home," Yumi agreed.

It was 9:30 on Jeremie's alarm clock.

"You're right. We'll go back to it tomorrow," Jeremie said.

All of them went back to their rooms. Yumi snoke out of the dorm, unnoticed.

Aelita couldn't sleep for a long time. She had bad feelings about today's weird attack as she convinced herself many times how smart XANA could be. She recalled how many times he set traps to get rid of them and how he used her trust and naivity to get what he wanted. Now he had everything he needed to take over the world but an absolute certainty that nobody would disturb his pursuit. Right away she thought about her father, who was probably hiding somewhere in the most distant corner of the Internet. She really wanted to know what solution he would come up with. Unfortunately, he had his hands tied as he couldn't contact them without risking his life.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

"Jeremie!"

Aelita stood over Jeremie's bed and poked him until he finally woke up.

"Aelita? What's up...?" he mumbled when he turned to face her. It was 6:30am on Tuesday, one of these few days when they started their classes later and could use a little more sleep; therefore bigger was his surprise.

"I had a dream... and it turned out to be real..." she said fearfully.

They hurried up to her room. Aelita's computer was turned on, with her e-mail client opened.

"Look at this!" she said, pointing at the newest e-mail. There was a sequence of numbers and letters in "From" column, topic was missing and its content was:

THANK YOU

I LOVE YOU

written as white letters on black background.

Jeremie adjusted his glasses.

"It looks like a spam to me," he said, staying stoic calm.

"Spam, huh? Wait until I tell you my dream! I was dreaming of yesterday's attack, but this time I was on Lyoko alone. And when I wanted to deactivate that tower, this," she said as she pointed at the message again, "showed up on the interface! When I woke up, some intuition told me to check my email. That's interesting, since I forgot to do so yesterday..."

While Jeremie was listening to Aelita's story, he focused his attention on date of reception.

"Do you recall on what hour might you have deactivated the tower?"

He pointed at the date, which was Monday, 3:56 pm. Aelita started to count.

"It must have been about 3:15pm when the Superscan called, because Odd and Yumi hurried to the lesson. Counting in about 30 minutes for getting into the factory and virtualization process, it..." She stopped her calculations. "You think it may have something to do with it?"

"I don't know, but this message can give us an answer. Burn it on CD for me, maybe I'll be able to analyze it."

Suddenly, door opened without knocking and Odd ran into the room. Aelita and Jeremie almost jumped in surprise.

"Hi, I hope you remember that we're having a class trip to Musee d'Orsay today. The gathering is in half an hour and you're not ready yet? What's the matter?" he broke off, not seeing expected enthusiasm.

"We'll explain later. Wait, it's today?" puzzled Jeremie asked.

"I get it, Einstein drowned in his thoughts on History yesterday. Anyway, I'd rather you two hurried up. Breakfast is waiting..."

"You walking stomach!" Jeremie joked.

"I take care of you, my friend. Move it!" Odd answered.

Students at Kadic _loved_ these trips. Their idea was spending few hours on exhausting wandering through numerous rooms with company of a guide who talked as if he recited history of art textbook from memory. In addition, he usually had a manner of speaking comparable only to monotoneous sound of museum's air conditioners. However, there were also good sides of this rather bitter situation. It meant an entire day off classes; what's more, provided by parents' permission students could come back home on their own, which usually meant extending the trip programme to stores and cafes in the city centre.

That was a day's perspective for a group of eight-graders who were waiting for the bus near the main gate to the campus. Soon Aelita, Jeremie, Odd and Ulrich joined them. They were surprised when they saw a small group of nine-graders among their classmates, including Yumi and William.

"Hi, since when do upper classes join lower ones on trips?" Ulrich asked as he came closer to them.

"Hi everyone," Yumi greeted her friends. "Since never, but Chardin's high level Arts group is always welcome."

"Nice to see you all. We have something to tell you..." Jeremie began and told everyone about the message Aelita received.

"I don't get this at all," Yumi scratched the back of her head.

"I hope we'll find out more thanks to an analysis of that message," Jeremie replied.

"But what else will we find out, except that Aelita has a secret admirer?" Odd smirked.

"What interests me the most is _who_ sent it. In the first place I'll search for something like IP address, which enables me to track the sender."

"Maybe it is hidden in that weird sequence of numbers and letters?" Aelita added.

"Leave it for now. The bus has arrived!" Ulrich interrupted.

After presence check they occupied 3 double seats and soon they set off to face the morning traffic jams.

The bus slowly moved through the maze of streets. Most of students soon fell asleep. Aelita, who rarely had a chance to get out of the district where school and factory were, attentively observed the world outside the windows. At the same time she was thinking about the dream which woke her up so brutally and the message she received. She had a funny feeling that it was something more than a silly spam.

Suddenly, a strong shake distracted her attention from her problems. She took a look through the frontal window. It was the bus which began to break hard in front of the yellow light that appeared on the intersection ahead. Most of the cars around accelerated to manage through the intersection. Eventually the traffic lights changed from yellow to red , forcing the vehicles to stop. Then the lights turned green all of a sudden. Some cars which already drove onto the junction almost crashed with those which headed in perpendicular direction. The other ones were forced to break hard with the squeal of tires in front of the red. In the end chaos took over the intersection.

Awakened passengers of the bus watched the cars standing crosswise the road with astonishment as they were going through without any problems. Some of them continued looking behind and observing as the situation was going back to normal after that nervous incident. Luckily, it all managed without any accident. The group glanced at each other meaningfully in the habit of constant wariness due to XANA's attacks.

The journey through the rest of the city went on peacefully. However, the group noticed an interesting phenomenon. The bus crossed all the junctions on green light no matter what the situation on the road was. When they finally arrived at the parking lot near the museum, they immediately shared their observations.

"Cut it out, it might have as well been a coincidence! The same thing happens when I travel by car with my parents!" William commented on their behaviour as he did not quite understand why they were so worried about it.

"William... let's say it's a kind of... our little habit to notice things," Odd answered.

"Eh, maybe we really exaggerate and after what we got through recently we see XANA's doing everywhere," Jeremie scratched his head.

"Kadic Junior High, follow me, please!" shouted professor Fumet, their tutor, and students gathered around him..

Students left the museum after several hours. Having showed parents' permissions to the teacher, some of them went away in a direction known only to themselves. The rest of them, about fifteen people, had to wait for the bus, which was to come and get them any time.

"William, show me that brochure," Yumi said.

"You don't have it? I thought you took one..." William answered.

"I didn't... You didn't, either? But it had so much useful information in it!"

"Calm down, I took two, I can give one to you," Aelita laughed.

"What do you need that brochure for anyway? You took so many notes that they'd be enough to write a book," Odd joked, pointing at a notebook Yumi held in her hand.

"Admit that, it wasn't that bad. The guide was good to tell the truth," Ulrich changed the topic.

"That's true, he had a great knowledge and he could hand it down in an interesting way, too," Aelita admitted. "By the way, which part of the exhibition did you enjoy the most? For me it was Gaugin and his pintings from Tahiti."

"I liked everything. These guys had talent, no doubt about it," Odd declared.

So the conversation went on. Only Jeremie stayed back and started considering the events of that day's morning. _Let me sit down and analyse this message and I'll find out everything_, he thought with an inner smile. Suddenly, Odd interrupted his train of thought.

"Hey Jeremie, why so quiet, huh? I know that your major concern at that moment is XANA rather than if _Portrait of Emil Zola _is Monet's or Manet's, but c'mon..."

"Sorry," Jeremie murmured quickly, "and besides, _Portrait of Emil Zola_ is Manet's."

"Good old Einstein is back! I can never discriminate between these two."

"Where's that bus?" William got annoyed. "We're waiting for almost an hour now..."

As if in answer, professor Fumet spoke.

"Dear students, the bus driver called me to tell me that the bus is out of order, and sending another one for us is impossible. Therefore, I received special permission from our principal to return to school by RER. We will go to the station now. Please follow the group and maintain discipline."

The students followed the teacher on a way to the station.

As they arrived at the underground station, Yumi immediately directed them to the nearby ticket machines. They inserted the coins and received their tickets one by one. Soon it was Aelita's turn.

"Oh no, I don't have any money left!" she said, searching for coins in her pockets.

"No problem, I'll give you some," Jeremie offered.

At that moment the machine buzzed a little and a ticket fell out of it.

"You don't have to, I think I had just been sponsored by the machine," Aelita said and took the ticket from the drawer. Jeremie stopped fumbling in his wallet and took a suspicious look at the machine.

"You're lucky today, Princess!" Odd said.

"Looks like it," Aelita replied and checked the piece of paper which looked like the most normal ticket in the world.

"Do you all have tickets? Fumet is leaving already," Ulrich said, pointing at the teacher and rest of the students, who hurried towards the gates. The group soon caught up with them.

"Hey, there's a lot of trains, why in such a hurry?" Yumi asked Matthias Burel.

"There are repairs on the rails and a train to Billancourt leaves every half an hour only," the boy answered.

A schedule on the platform informed that the nearest train leaves in a minute. Everybody hurried. The train already waited on the platform when they heard a sound signalizing the doors to be closed. The train moved before they managed to run to the door and then a weird thing happened – the train suddenly stopped, allowing them to get in. Breathless, the group ran inside. The doors closed behind them and train moved immediately. Aelita, Yumi and Jeremie sat down on vacant seats whole Ulrich, Odd and William stuck to the pipes and handles.

"Did you see that?" Aelita said, having the events on the platform in mind.

"A coincidence," William answered.

"It looked like done on purpose. As if somebody stopped the train," Jeremie noticed.

"You know it sounds too weird to be true," Ulrich opposed.

"Remember folks, Aelita has a secret electronic admirer..." Odd joked.

The group stared at him like at a crazy and remained silent for the rest of the journey.

As they arrived at the Academy, they split in different directions. Yumi went home and the rest of the group headed to the dorm, except Jeremie, who went to the factory in order to work on the message.

When Aelita pushed the door leading to the girls floor, the lights on the corridor turned on. She stood amazed as she found out that the switch was placed almost two steps from where she was. She almost ran to her room's door, opened them and closed behind her quickly. She sat on her bed and tried to compredend all today's weird events. She was under the impression that all the obstacles were getting out of her way. It was not only about the ticket machine or the train. When she recalled all her today's contact with electrical device of any kind, she noticed that they worked for her suprisingly well. She suspected there was a deliberate action behind it, which on one hand appeared nice to her, but on the other hand worried her. As she added the message she received that morning, she had no idea what to think of it.

Meanwhile in the factory, Jeremie tried to figure out the sender of the message when the catastrophe-tracking programme returned some results. He immediately stopped working on the message and focused his attention on the findings.

Luckily for Jeremie, the next day was Wednesday, next in a row of these few days when eight-graders could use a little more sleep. Luckily, because he did not get a lot of sleep last night. He stayed in the factory till late and worked in his own room afterwards, working out his smart programme's findings. He explained everything to the group during breakfast.

"Guess what I found out yesterday. There has been a hack attempt at French Army's supercomputer."

"I thought you were working on the message," Odd interrupted.

"I left it for now. Back on topic, I found out that somebody tried to access top-secret military files, but the attack was stopped."

The rest of the group looked at him, concerned. The news sounded serious.

"I guess some amateurs decided not to mess up with military securings and called up their attack," Yumi joked.

"I don't think it was amateur at all," Jeremie said. "My findings indicate that the attack was well-prepared. It was ran from multiple sides simultaneously and with use of powerful equipment."

"Sounds like XANA, doesn't it?" Ulrich asked.

"I thought of it straightaway. It'd explain his last attack. However, one tower on Lyoko wouldn't be enough for him. He'd have to accumulate a lot of energy from Replikas and coordinate it to succeed. It looks like this one tower decided on his loss."

Jeremie stopped to catch his breath.

"Fortunately, though," he continued. "Everything we saw in Replikas may be nothing compared to this one. Remember that we'll never be sure what technologies are at army's disposal, and this particular supercomputer is told to outclass all civilian ones."

"Top secret military data and more powerful computers, that's all he needed! He never has enough, " said Aelita angrily.

"There's something that bothers me," Jeremie added. "This attack fits XANA's methods perfectly, but he seems not to prepare another one. In fact, he limited his activity recently. Superscan shows that nothing's happening on Replikas right now."

"Got any explanation?" Ulrich asked again.

"No. That's why I'm worried," he answered.

"But even if it was XANA, what about the message?" Odd butted in.

"That's why I'm heading to the factory after school. The sooner we solve all the mysteries, the better."

Soon they all finished their breakfast and went to their classes. However tough the day was, none of them could pass the newest revelations indifferently. On one hand they were glad that XANA's attack had been stopped, but on the other hand they were worried how long the peace was going to last.

Everybody took care of themselves after school. Yumi studied at home for her next test. Ulrich attended Pencak Silat training session as usual and Odd played fooseball in the rec room. Aelita decided to go for a lone walk to the Hermitage. She was glad to leave all electronic items locked in her room.

Jeremie was in the lab and came back to the analysis of the message. At one moment a new window with several lines of new code appeared on the screen. He read them quickly and having realised what he just found out, he ran back to school. This news could not wait.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

Aelita was walking in the woods, thinking and generally enjoying her time alone. No one disturbed her in the distant part of the forest, which at that time of the day was visited only by birds and squirrels. As she arrived at a crossroad, she noticed a man, who was walking in her direction. She raised an eyebrow as she did not expect to meet anyone. As the figure came closer she recognised it. It was William.

"Seems like not only I decided to use some fresh air in the woods," started William when they met.

"Yep, it's the only place where you can really take a deep breath," Aelita replied.

"May I join?"

Aelita nodded, deciding that she actually could use company. They started to walk together on a path which led to the Hermitage. They remained silent for a short while until William decided to ask a question.

"Do you think we have any chance of beating XANA?"

It took a moment for Aelita to answer.

"I don't know," she sighed, "I really don't. The situation got out of control."

He looked at her, surprised. He had no idea what her point was.

"We're at the starting point again. I mean, we managed to set you free, but what next? Again, XANA is more powerful and we don't know what to do. But this time things went so far that I'm starting to doubt if we can figure out any solution."

"Maybe Jeremie has a plan?"

"Jeremie seems to be overwhelmed by this, too..."

Aelita looked straight ahead.

"I wish we could contact someone more experienced, someone... wiser than us."

"Like who?" William couldn't restrain his curiosity.

"Dad. Franz Hopper," she added, noticing he in fact did not know the story of her family and Lyoko.

"You think he would know what to do?" William asked.

"For sure. He helped us many times when we lost all hope. I think that wherever he is now, he has a plan. After all, he knows XANA better than any of us... he created him."

Having mentioned her father, she fell silent. William laid his hand on her shoulder to cheer her up.

"I will always be ready to fight XANA. I'll never forgive him what he did to me."

"Thanks, William. Glad to hear that."

Aelita wished she could tell him more and spit out all her worries. She gave up, seeing he still did not fully understand the whole kept on walking and talking about random topics and left XANA alone.

Later on the path they saw a stranger, who was going straight at them. As he got closer, he grinned menacingly and ran towards them.

"What's wrong with him?" asked William nervously.

"Watch out, this guy is posessed!" Aelita shouted, as she noticed signs of XANA in stranger's eyes.

Not long did it take until Polymorphic Spector threw William into the bushes. Aelita managed to run away a few meters, but she already knew she had no chances against a guy with superhuman powers...

At the same time, breathless Jeremie arrived at the dorm. He immediately ran to Aelita's room. Noticing it was locked, he quickly went to Odd's and Ulrich's room.

Odd was there, playing with Kiwi. Jeremie's sudden appearance suprised both the dog and his master. Kiwi hid under Odd's desk.

"What's going on, Einstein? I already got scared it was Jim..."

"Have you seen Aelita?" asked Jeremie quickly.

"No, she disappeared right after classes. But tell me, what's going on?"

"We have to find her. She's in danger!"

"Oh, I see," Odd said, who judged by Jeremie's behaviour that there was a real threat, "Did you call her?"

"Sure I did, but she's not picking up."

"Will you tell me what's up?" Odd asked for the third time. After a moment of hesitation Jeremie decided to sit on Ulrich's bed.

"I deciphered the message. It's XANA's doing!" 

Aelita opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a unnaturally yellow and green coloured sky and tree stems rising around her. Her first impression was that she stayed in woods, but having tried to catch her breath she realised that she was in a forest, but in a virtual one. She was in the forest sector of Lyoko! That was when she understood – she was caught and overpowered, taken to the factory and virtualized by the Spector.

She stood up and looked around. XANA could not have picked a better time and place. With her friends at school and Jeremie probably laying somewhere out cold in the factory, she was all alone; to make things worse, there was no tower in sight where she could hide.

_"Whatever you do, XANA, I'm ready to fight,"_ she thought, focusing her attention.

Suddenly, behind her she heard tapping sounds, which resembled an approaching Tarantula. She was not mistaken. As she turned around, she saw three Tarantulas standing right in front of her. She was about to release an energy field when, to her surprise, monsters bent their front limbs as if they wanted to greet her. Two of them stood up while the third one in the middle went forward and bent down. Aelita guessed it wanted her to saddle down on its head. As she did, the welcoming comittee moved on towards the nearby plateau.

Meanwhile, Jeremie and Odd were searching for Aelita. They checked every place where she potentially could go after the lessons, with no luck. As well as every person asked about her could not tell where she might have been.

Discouraged and even more worried, they came back to Odd's room. They found Ulrich in there, who must have come from the shower after the training session judging by his wet hair. Jeremie and Odd told him the whole story. Ulrich scratched his head.

"Maybe she's at Yumi's? Or in the park?" he suggested.

„At Yumi's ? I doubt, but it's worth checking..." Jeremie pulled his cell phone out of the pocket. "I'll call her."

"The park! We weren't there yet!" Odd got excited. Ulrich calmed him down and pointed at Jeremie, who was talking to Yumi.

"So, Jeremie thinks it's all XANA's doing?" Ulrich whispered.

"Yeah. I was right about that electronic admirer, but I'd never have thought of XANA as being one!" Odd replied with a grin.

"See ya!" Jeremie hang up. He turned to the boys. "She told me that Aelita wasn't with her, but she'd join us as she found that all suspicious. Let's go, we'll meet her on the grounds."

As the boys met Yumi on the courtyard they went together to the park. Jeremie explained everything to her once again on their way.

"What a mess," she commented. "But what's XANA's purpose on pretending that he_ has a crush _on_ her_? That's so absurd..."

"I don't know. I don't like this," Jeremie retorted.

They took a look around the park with no luck. Then, Jeremie got something in mind. He told his friends of his idea and soon they all ran to the Hermitage.

As they were heading to the house in the woods, they met William. He leaned on a tree and was in a poor shape.

"I wanted to call you, but the posessed guy wrecked my mobile," he gasped.

He told them how he met Aelita while walking on the woods and described the attack of a Spector.

"And when I woke up, they weren't there..."

"It must have taken her to the factory! Come on, on the double!" worried Jeremie ordered.

Odd and Ulrich helped William stand up and the five headed to the secret entrance to the sewers.

Aelita arrived at the plateau on Tarantula's back. There were already other monsters waiting for them, which included a couple of Tarantulas and Krabes, several Blocks and Kankerlats. They lined up so that they formed semicircles on the edges of the plateau, leaving free space inside.

The three Tarantulas stepped into the circle. The one that carried Aelita on its back put her down and took a step backwards, leaving her alone surrounded by other monsters.

It was incredibly silent and an atmosphere of expectation could be felt. Aelita was curious and at the same time scared of what would happen next. Previously, she was determined to escape; now, she froze in fear and prayed somebody took her out of uncertainty.

Suddenly, a blue sphere appeared on the edge of the plateau, as if it just rose from the digital sea. When it slowly fell to the ground, a dark, tall silhouette emerged from inside of it. At this moment all the monsters on the plateau turned towards the figure and bowed, like they paid homage to it.

The figure approached Aelita. It turned out to be a man. He was slightly taller than her and had black hair with a long fringe, which was combed to the left side of his face. He was wearing a dark uniform similar to the one that posessed William once wore; the difference was made by a long, black cloak which majestically fluttered behind him as he walked firmly, like in slow motion. His appearance was dark and aroused fear and respect. At the same time he looked friendly and gentle thanks to his light blue eyes, which right then stared at Aelita with adoration.

He stopped a few steps away from her and bowed. While still in a bow, he rose his eyes and made a speech.

"Aelita, forgive me that you had to wait for me for such a long time, but certain circumstances were keeping us apart. I am glad to see you again."

She stood still, overawed. Nobody had ever spoken to her in such a manner before. She wanted to know who that mysterious guy was, but both confusion and fear made her unable to speak. The boy continued.

"Not long ago did I realize that my actions were... absurd. This was happening completely against my will. My existence was a nightmare in which I wanted to destroy the world so that a new, better one would emerge from its ashes. And then, You appeared. Thanks to You I am freed of wandering in the darkness and destruction. Thanks to you I awakened."

That was when she understood. It was XANA who was in front of her! But... what happened to old evil XANA she knew?

"I was so grateful that I had no idea how I should thank you. But then I recalled Master's words. Master said, _'Protect those that you love'_, and I did."

"_The lights, the train... it all matches!"_ Aelita thought. _"HE did this all... for me?"_ It sounded insane but was true.

"But it all seemed not enough. You kept on not noticing my efforts."

He stood up and took her hand.

"I needed to meet you to tell you. Thank you."

Their eyes met. He stared affectionately. She looked at him with fear and confusion. He noticed that.

"Are you afraid of me? Why? You're safe here, they," he pointed at the monsters standing around them, "will take care of it."

Aelita just could not comprehend that. Since when did her worst enemy wish her well? She was unsure of his intentions, she had to check them somehow...

"I'm afraid of them, your monsters," she said.

He smiled, like he was happy to finally hear her voice.

"Would you rather they were gone?" he asked.

She nodded. He turned and glanced at the monsters. As if in response to his non-verbal order, they started to go away. Soon only the two reamined on the plateau.

She smiled lightly to make a relaxed impression. Deep inside she was still thrilled with the whole situation. Nevertheless, monsters' disappearance made her less stressed.

"Any other wish?" He asked.

"Well... yeah... I- I think I have to come back to Earth now..." she said hesitantly. This idea was wondering in her mind for a short while, but she could not find courage to ask until then.

The wide smile left his face.

"Already? Please do not leave so quickly. We hardly met. Please stay a little longer, I assure you will not regret it," he begged.

He gave her such a charming look that at that moment she was unable to reject his offer.

Meanwhile on Earth, the gang realised the elevator in the factory was broken. Odd pushed the button repeatedly with no effect.

"Looks like he turned the elevator off to slow us down. Let's go through the basement," Jeremie ordered.

They stepped out of the cabin and ran to the underground passage. In few minutes they were climbing down the ladder to the laboratory. They immediately ran to the screens. Jeremie jumped onto the chair and typed in some commands. The rest of the group was looking around, expecting the Spector to appear at unexpected moment.

"Aelita's alone in the forest sector," Jeremie said when he called up a window with a map.

"She's not," Yumi noticed and pointed at a green mark next to a yellow triangle which marked Aelita's position.

"But if she's not alone... then who's with her?" Ulrich asked as he came closer to the screen.

The tapping noise muted as Jeremie stopped typing when he realised.

"It's XANA himself," he whispered.

At the same time on Lyoko, Aelita and the new incarnation of XANA were sitting on a branch near a digital pond. Its surroundings looked different in comparison to what this part of sector usually looked like. In fact, it resembled an actual forest much more then. There were nice, colorful digital flowers, which grew not only on the ground around the trees, but also floated on the surface of the virtual water and bird chirping, coming from somewhere high up in the trees, could be heard. Oh yes, XANA did his best to entertain and amuse Aelita! He wanted to improve the virtual world so that she enjoyed staying there as much as possible. He succeeded; she calmed down and looked much more relaxed. She also was more willing to participate in a conversation, mostly about random, simple things that people who do not know much about each other talk about; he also kept on telling her how grateful he was for her. Aelita was surprised how naturally he behaved, although he was merely an A.I. When she convinced herself that he really was not going to hurt her, she felt a lot more comfortable. Nevertheless, she still wanted to come back to Earth as soon as possible.

Meanwhile in the underground laboratory Ulrich, Odd, Yumi, William and Jeremie observed two shapes, green and yellow, with attention. Contrary to their expectations, they kept on staying in the same place - there was no sign of movement, leave alone fight. Jeremie grew impatient.

"What's going on? I'm sending you in there right now!" he decided.

However, when he wanted to start the virtualization process, the supercomputer refused to respond. Suddenly, a large window popped up and a stream of data appeared in it. Jeremie's glasses almost fell off his nose due to surprise. The others were shocked as well, but less than Jeremie, who after a while deciphered the meaning of the slowly elongating column of code.

"Unbelieveable!" he shouted.

"What's up?" the others asked almost simultaneously.

"It's Franz Hopper..." Jeremie said slowly. "He's sending us a programme, which, according to what is written here, will help us get rid of XANA!"

After a while of a chat, XANA paused and looked around suspiciously.

"_What's wrong with him?"_ Aelita thought fearfully as she observed him. He stood up and kept looking, as if he noticed something and seeked for the source of it. Then he kneeled in front of her and glanced at her submissively.

"I unfortunately have to leave now," he said quietly, still staring at her like he was asking her for permission to leave. To Aelita's surprise, she didn't want him to leave, not yet.

"Why?" she asked when she realised how many things she would like to learn about him.

"I cannot tell you. I have to leave now," he said in a tone which out of a sudden sounded rather angry. It made Aelita even more frightened.

"I understand," she replied quickly. He looked like that answer relieved him. Then, his behaviour changed completely – he straightened up and his eyes stiffened.

"Please meet tomorrow, 5pm universal time in Mountain Sector," he recited mildly. He bowed her again and soon a blinding flash of light surrounded him. When Aelita opened her eyes, he was gone.

Meanwhile on Earth, data transmission was suddenly terminated. Everybody was surprised with how fast it was over; Jeremie, who hoped that Franz would send the entire programme, was the most disappointed.

"It looks like a beginning codes for a really long and complicated programme. The transmission speed was also fairly low..." he explained to himself aloud, so that everybody heard him.

The window closed itself and in its place a visual of sector's surface appeared. The gang noticed that only yellow triangle remained on the plateau, while the green sign was gone.

Jeremie immediately gained control of the system and contacted Aelita.

"Hey Aelita, do you read me? What the..."

"Jeremie?" He heard Aelita's distorted voice. "Are you there?"

"Yes I am, but what-"

"I'm OK," she interrupted him. "Rematerialize me and I'll explain everything to you."

Some nervous keyboard tapping later, Aelita told everybody about what happened on Lyoko.

"I knew it since it started," Odd said, "It all matched perfectly – first the lights, then a train, all ending up on a date on Lyoko!"

"Oh my, it was so scary, but later he was so adorable," Aelita laughed.

"He treated you like a real princess, that's for sure," Odd added. "He even fell to his knees before you!"

"Yeah, he became so romantic out of a sudden," Ulrich sighed.

"And is no longer evil," Yumi sumed up.

"He really did change," Aelita admitted. "He looked like he... was in love or something."

Jeremie didn't like that idea, so he changed the course of the discussion.

"It amuses me how suddenly XANA changed his attitude."

"Heh, it is indeed interesting. What did him such a brainwash that he switched to the light side?" Ulrich wondered, still having fresh memories of William.

"Maybe it's thanks to that mystrious Master? XANA said that he made him realise he was doing wrong. Unfortunately, he didn't reveal who he was."

"And what does that programme have in common with this?" Yumi asked.

"No idea," Jeremie said, as he put his hands in the pockets and started walking around the lab. "It's all so weird. I even can't figure out how that programme works. Franz just left a short note that it'll help destroy XANA, but nothing more. What I don't understand either is, why he stopped the transmission if XANA is no longer a threat."

"Keep in mind that he sent a posessed guy after us," William noticed.

"Looks like Franz is not so convinced about XANA's change, just like we aren't," Yumi said.

Jeremie judged it as high probable.

"Maybe I'll find out more tomorrow," Aelita said.

"Tomorrow? How?" Jeremie asked and raised his eyebrows.

"I'm supposed to meet him after classes," she explained.

"What?" she said when she noticed surprise in her friends' eyes. „Maybe we'll learn something. Besides, think of the programme. My father might send some data again."

"Maybe..." Jeremie said. It could be noticed that he sounded unconvinced about that idea. "It's worth trying. In that case, I'll go with you," he decided.

Yumi glanced at her watch.

"Oh, I must go, it's already 8pm. You know my parents."

"8pm already?" Willliam repeated. "We better run to the dorm, Jim is making an inspection today, haven't you forgotten?"

The inhabitants of the dorm could not argue with him.

They came back to school in much better moods than when they were leaving it. They all felt relieved that the entire story ended well. On the other hand questions about how XANA changed were still haunting them. Odd kept on joking of 'XANA in love', which noticeably irritated Jeremie, who tried to talk about the programme. Aelita noticed his reactions and did not let be deceived by Jeremie's apparent enthusiasm. She knew very well that Jeremie had a tendency to take things the wrong way. She could only hope it was a result of his previous experiences with XANA.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4**

The next day welcomed the students of Kadic Academy with such a cloudy sky that although it was morning, darkness seized school's interiors. At the same time the air became moist and suffocating. The Academy, which was usually filled with morning hubbub was exceptionally silent that day, the reason being an unfavourable weather which affected most of the students.

The storm was coming inevitably. Soon the air was filled with sounds of thunders and the classrooms blinked due to the lightning, as if somebody was taking photos of the students from the outside with a huge flash light on.

The eighth graders had Physics class with Mrs. Hertz when the storm started. Some of most timid students who were sitting right under the windows begged the teacher to let them sit closer to the wall.

"There's no reason for you to fear the storm. You are all safe inside the building. The school has lightning conductors installed..." she began to rationalize when a fuss started in a row under the windows.

Despite loud protests, the teacher did not give in. Some students were still unconvinced about their safety and were sitting miserable, covering their heads with hands outstretched in a gesture of sudden defense. The lesson went on accompanied by thunders and heavy rain, which started to drum against the windows. The darkness of the classroom was lit only by a light coming from an overhead projector.

Suddenly a sound of massive thunder thrilled the building. Everybody jumped in their seats. The projector shut off and a sinister darkness filled the classroom. Some people from under the window groaned in fear. The rest began to whisper nervously to each other.

"Calm down, please, I asked you enough times!" Mrs. Hertz said in a harsh, but calm tone. Unfortunately, students did not share her self-control. Only Aelita, Jeremie, Odd and Ulrich stayed stoic calm.

"Phew, what a storm is that? It's nothing compared to what happened during the camp at the lake," Odd said to Ulrich and Jeremie, who were sitting behind him.

A moment later the projector shone again and Mrs. Hertz could continue the lesson.

Then, a cell phone rang. Everybody kept looking at their classmates and tried to spot whose it was. At this moment Aelita realized it was hers, and blushed. The rest of the class looked at her.

"Aelita, the cell phone should be turned off before class!" she was reminded by Mrs. Hertz.

"Yes, ma'am, I'm sorry..." Aelita muttered and reached to her bag for her phone. She always put it on vibrate during classes and had no idea how come it rang. She received a message. The boys behind her stretched their necks to see who was it from. Jeremie frowned as if he was almost one hundred percent sure who it was from.

"Oh my, it's from XANA!" Aelita chuckled, "He asks if I'm OK, 'cause he learned about some unrest on Earth," she added, covering her mouth in amazement.

"Wow, how caring he is...Isn't it sweet?" Odd whispered. Jeremie looked at him like he was going to kill him with his eyesight.

"What's wrong with you?" Odd asked him, but quieted down when Mrs. Hertz looked in their direction.

The storm was over before the bell rang. Nevertheless, a bad weather was dominant during the rest of the day. It did not clear up until quarter to five when Aelita and Jeremie headed to the factory. When they stepped into the elevator, Jeremie stayed in the lab and Aelita went a level below to the scanner room.

After a routine virtualization process Aelita landed in the mountain sector near an entrance to an enormous cave. That was when she became anxious about what was going to happen and awareness of Jeremie sitting by the controls did not make her feel any better. She knew that if something went wrong, he wouldn't be able to help her fast due to her father's transmission. After all, XANA remained XANA, at least that was what she thought. They could never anticipate his actions.

She noticed he already awaited her under a small tree near the entrance to the cave. His face brightened up with a wide smile when he saw her. Just like at the first meeting, he bowed in front of her and took her by the hand.

"Welcome back. It seemed like eternity since we last met," he said in his usual official tone. "These were not peaceful 24 hours in the Web. Some information about unrest on Earth reached me."

"Just a storm, nothing dangerous," Aelita said, "Thanks for caring, but I'd rather you didn't call in the middle of the lesson."

"I wanted to confirm there was no threat to you. Nevertheless, I am glad you are safe and sound," he answered and turned in the direction where the cave was.

"Therefore dear, I would like you to join me in a ride!"

He clapped his hands twice and a Manta emerged from inside of the cave. It immediately flew low and stopped in front of them. He made a welcoming gesture and helped her mount on the monster. As they did, he gave a sign to go.

Meanwhile in the lab, a transmission window appeared on the screen, just like Jeremie predicted. Then his mobile rang; it was Yumi who called.

"Hey guys, how's it going?" she asked.

"Fine... Franz is sending the programme and Aelita's... on Lyoko."

"Awesome. I'm glad everything's OK."

"Me too," Jeremie said, confused.

"I have to go, my mom's calling me to tidy up, bye!"

"See ya tomorrow." Jeremie hung up.

On Lyoko, a crazy ride across the sector on Manta's back continued. The monster flew with agility between the hills and paths like a rollercoaster, making Aelita scream out of fear and joy alternately. In fact there was nothing to be afraid of – XANA took care of the safety, so that she did not move even during the most sudden turns and fastest rises.

Soon the ride came to an end. They stopped on one of the hills. From the top of it a breathtaking scene of almost entire sector could be seen. In the distance a brightly shining sphere of Carthage was visible. Aelita sat down to enjoy the sight.

"Wow... how did you know it's my favourite place on Lyoko?" she asked him.

"I did not," he answered.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" She looked at Sector Five far away. He remained silent and seemed to look somewhere far ahead as well.

"It's great. I like it. How about you?" she repeated. He got noticeably confused.

"If you like it, then I like it, too," he answered, looking at her with his usual adoring glare.

"It brings back memories, you know", she continued, "When I was little, I lived in the mountains for some time. But the mountains on Earth are completely different. One reason, they're much higher. They rise thousands of meters above the sea level. The highest peaks are covered in snow for the whole year, it's so cold up there. I remember that the place where I lived was surrounded by forest. You can't imagine how beautiful it was in the summer. But it's winter when mountains are the most beautiful. Everything is covered by a thick layer of snow and you can ski and sleigh ride... I wish I could come back there someday."

"Tell me please what it is like to live on Earth."

Aelita noticed that the more often she mentioned Earth, his interest of that world grew. What he particularly wanted to know was why it was so much better than the virtual one he knew. She mentioned senses that one lacks when being on Lyoko and tried to describe a variety of sensations one experiences while on Earth. It wasn't an easy task; she understood it perfectly since a few years ago she couldn't imagine that herself. She recalled how hard it was for Jeremie to explain how human senses worked. Then she began to talk about weather, seasons of the year, time and so on. He was amazed by complexity of these processes.

"Today you made me realize how unstable your world is. It changes so often and fast. How do you manage in it?" he asked.

"You're right, my world is quite fragile, but virtual world isn't all safe either."

„It is as long as I am by your side. You have nothing to fear of there," he assured her and again gave her an adoring gaze.

At the same time on Earth everything was going perfectly. Jeremie hoped that Franz managed to send him the whole programme. But suddenly something weird happened – image on the screen began to shake in a weird way, as if the signal was disturbed. When it stopped, the window vanished and contact was cut. Jeremie had bad feelings about this. He expected the worst. Immediately after gaining control of the system, he contacted Aelita.

"Hey... come back to Earth now! Something weird is going on..."

"Jeremie, but why? What's wrong?"

"I'll explain later. I don't like this. Prepare yourself to be rematerialized!"

"But... wait..."

"My last word, 'Materialization."

Jeremie explained to Aelita what happened on their way to the dorm.

"So, you think XANA's alteration is unstable?" she asked when they arrived at the dorm, more precisely – on the corridor on girls' floor.

"Yeah. It looked like something disturbed the transmission on purpose. I think your father noticed it, so he cut off."

"And it is a reason for you to bring me in?"

"Whatever made XANA change, I know one thing – he's still dangerous. You should stop your trips to Lyoko until I find another way to contact your father and get this programme," he said when they stopped in front of Aelita's room.

When Aelita opened the door, a strong flower scent hit them. To their surprise in the middle of the room stood a basket with a composition made of white lilies and roses, accompanied by big green decorative leaves. Jeremie stood like a statue in open door and Aelita came closer to the basket and pulled a small white envelope with a letter inside. She opened the envelope and read the message inside.

"'I can't stop thinking of you, I see you everywhere around, I miss another chance for us to meet.' Hm, it's not signed. No, it can't be from... Jeremie?"

She looked at the door. Jeremie wasn't there. She closed the door and moved the basket behind the wardrobe out of sight. She had a feeling it was sent by XANA, so she'd rather not too many people knew about it.

She sat on her bed and threw the envelope on a drawer. Jeremie's behaviour concerned her. Since they learned about XANA's change, he began to behave in a strange way. She wanted to go to is room and try to talk with him about it when Odd and Ulrich went into her room.

"Hi Aelita, how are you?" Ulrich started.

"Hi, I'm fine. Me and Jeremie have just come back from the factory," she answered.

"We saw him but he didn't feel like talking to us. We want to know how did it go? Hey, what smells so nice over there?" Odd asked.

In answer Aelita pointed at the corner behind the wardrobe where the basket stood. Odd came closer to have a closer look.

"Nice one. From who is it, from Einstein?"

„I highly doubt it, if it was, Einstein would be in much better mood," Ulrich noticed.

"How do you think?" Aelita asked. She handed the letter to them. They read it and giggled.

"Oh wow, so fluffy," Odd commented.

"Yeah, it's not Jeremie's style," Ulrich agreed, "Only an idiot would write something so cliché."

"Or an A.I in love, which has no clue about how to approach women," Odd added and handed the paper back to Aelita, "I don't know which I'd rather, fight XANA or read his love letters."

"At least now we know why Jeremie was so not in the mood," said Ulrich.

"You think he's mad?" Aelita got worried. She told them about her and Jeremie's conversation on their way to the dorm. Ulrich sat near her on the bed and Odd sat on a chair in front of the desk.

"Unstable?" Odd repeated in reference to XANA's state.

"That's what Jeremie thinks."

"Jer's mad? Jealous, that word would describe him better... don't you know him? He should get over it until tomorrow," he said. Aelita looked at her friends; she seemed unconvinced.

"You mean it?"

"'Course we do!" Ulrich confirmed. "Listen, he'll never tell you that straightaway, but it's no secret that he cares about you. Believe me."

Odd agreed. "Let's leave Jeremie alone, tell us what you were doing on Lyoko today!"

When Odd and Ulrich left, Aelita sat in front of her desk to do her homework and generally occupy her mind with something. But when she opened her first notebook, she still couldn't stop wondering about Ulrich's words. She knew deep down he was right, but she never expected anyone to say it aloud. She did not understand Jeremie even more. If it was so obvious they had feelings to each other, why was he so angry? She tried to be nice to XANA, but she had also a purpose in doing so. She was simply polite only to make it easier for her father to send his programme which will get rid of it...


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5**

Contrary to the previous one, the new day promised very well. There was no sign of yesterday's weather crash. The sun was shining and the sky was perfectly blue. The Academy came back to life as it filled with its usual morning energy. The group hoped to enjoy another peaceful day despite a large amount of classes. Unfortunately, not for long.

It all began right after few first classes. It turned out that half of the students learned somehow about an anonymous bouquet. Obviously, news which had something to do with a school music star Aelita Stones seemed too important to some to keep it to themselves. By the lunchtime most of eight graders knew and couldn't leave it alone without numerous gossips and comments.

As it used to be in such cases, the person involved wasn't aware that everybody around gossiped about her. It was when she tried to get through a crowded lunchroom to reach their favourite table next to the window when numerous heads were turning in her direction and loud comments were made. Soon after they sat down, Sissi with Herve and Nicholas came.

„Well Aelita, I wouldn't expect you're so popular! Who could predict that you'll have secret admirers? How do you feel about it, Jeremie?" she said and laughed out loudly triumphantly. Jeremie blushed, at the edge of releasing his anger.

"Admit it Sissi, you're jealous, aren't you?" Odd said after a while. "As principal's daughter you should be given fresh bouquets every day!"

The group burst out laughing. Sissi growled quietly hearing the retort and she left with her giggling bodyguards behind her.

„How did the entire school find out?" Yumi asked when Sissi was far away.

"She must have spread it," Ulrich said. "Did you see how proud she was of herself?"

"Yeah... but Odd, you were epic," William complimented.

„Thank you, and Odd the greatest saved the world again from Sissi's ego..." Odd joked. The others turned their heads sarcastically.

"It's some nightmare," Jeremie sighed angrily.

„Thanks to her, the gossips won't leave you alone," Yumi said to Aelita and Jeremie, who managed to calm down.

„That's what I'm afraid of," Aelita grew worried. She didn't need any extra fame.

At this moment the group noticed Milly and Tamiya, who were walking around the tables and asking people.

"They're already hunting a scoop," Odd said, pointing at them.

"I do not feel like talking to them now," Aelita said, putting her fork on an empty dish. Actually the others were waiting for her to finish, so they got up and having taken their trays back to Rosa, they sneaked out of the lunchroom in order not to be noticed by the journalists.

As they were outside, Jeremie suddenly left them and disappeared.

"Where's he going? We have Geography in few minutes," Aelita was surprised.

"Maybe he needs to stay alone with his thoughts," said Ulrich, who knew something about a need of isolating from the world.

"When I called him yesterday, he seemed normal," Yumi frowned.

"Einstein is lacking perspective," Odd said, looking in the direction where Jeremie headed to, "he can't get over things like you do, Aelita."

"Besides, it really hurts when people keep on talking rubbish about you- or someone close to you," William agreed.

„Don't worry," Yumi said and put her hand on Aelita's shoulder, „We know the truth, that's what counts."

"I really hope Jeremie knows that too," Aelita sighed.

The bell rang and they all rushed to their classes.

Jeremie was in a bad mood for the rest of the day. He went to his shell and looked as if he was mad at the whole world. He refused to talk to his friends. Some students noticed him to become extremely touchy and used it mercilessly to tease him, which resulted in his disappearances during the breaks. He remained incredibly silent during classes, although he used to be the most active student.

After classes were over, Aelita wanted to follow Jeremie to his room and try to talk to him. Surprisingly, he took the initiative after the last lesson.

"Shall we go to the factory?" he asked.

"Yesterday you were saying something different," Aelita reminded, surprised with his proposal.

"Well... I thought it over. Let's get this programme as fast as possible and end this," he explained.

"Sounds reasonable to me!" she brightened up. "Wait, I'll leave my things in my room."

"No, come on now!" he urged. He took Aelita by the hand and almost dragged her to the exit. The girl turned to face Odd and Ulrich, who were standing nearby, and shrugged as if saying, _"I don't know what's up with him, but I'll go."_

"I think Einstein suffers from serious personality disorders recently," Odd commented, observing as they were disappearing in the depths of the corridor.

Soon, Jeremie and Aelita arrived at the factory.

"Where are you supposed to go today?" Jeremie asked with an indifferent tone.

"Sector One", Aelita answered, and smiled at him mildly, hoping he would share her smile. He stepped into the lab with no sign of reaction.

When the doors closed behind him, he sat in front of the monitor and stretched his fingers while waiting for Franz Hopper to start the transfer.

When Aelita arrived at the polar region, the dark young man waited already. He bowed and greeted her in his usual super polite manner.

"I already thought you would not arrive today," he started.

"But I did," Aelita answered with a non-hidden joy.

"I am really glad. Follow me," he said.

He smiled widely and showed her the way to a nearby iceberg. Aelita followed him, wondering what he had in store for her today. When they arrived at the iceberg, Aelita noticed that on its wall there was an entrance to an ice cave, which was hidden behind a semi-transparent frozen waterfall.

"What's that?" She asked, as she could not remember such place existed ever before in ice sector.

"Go inside and find out," he encouraged her, smiling mysteriously.

She did as he told her. She went under the waterfall and walked into an enormous ice cave. However, its interior didn't look as an usual ice cave. It rather resembled an interior of one of the chambers of Sector Five which was literally transferred to the ice sector.

There was a lot of space inside. An impression of immensity was magnified by the height of the room. Massive, cubical, transparent blocks hung from the ceiling like stalactites. Light was going through and refracting inside the blocks, creating an incredible effect. Some of the blocks reached the floor, creating transparent, curvy columns. The floor was shiny and smooth and the ceiling was reflecting in it like in a mirror.

In the middle of the room stood a column made of ice blocks, which lay one on the other in a shape of gigantic twisting stairs. There was something on its top, but Aelita couldn't recognize it from the level of the floor. The monumental effect was completed with light, which created an atmosphere like in a temple.

Aelita opened her mouth in amazement when she stepped into that magnificent chamber. She was staring at the walls and the ceiling, unable to say a word. As she walked between the columns towards mysterious stairway, she was standing and taking a look around, still overwhelmed by the beauty of the room. He followed her, still smiling widely.

"Unbelievable," she finally spoke up. She realized to her growing amazement that if the chamber was not there before, then it must have been created especially for her.

"It's awesome," she spoke again.

"I will lead you to the top now," he said, putting one hand on her shoulder and pointing at the top of the column with another.

They came closer and walked onto the first step. It was then when Aelita realized how really high the construction was. She began to wonder how they would climb up so high, but she did not have to wait long for the answer. Suddenly, the column started to spin around almost soundlessly like a gigantic screw and the step they were standing on slowly moved up.

At the same time on Earth, the window still didn't show up, what made Jeremie increasingly worried. _"It'll show up soon,"_ he thought, staring at the screen with hope.

Accompanied by XANA, Aelita arrived at the top of the column. There was nothing but a big square flat platform, on which stood two ice blocks shaped like armchairs, standing opposite to one another.

From the platform the chamber appeared even bigger and more magnificent. The effect created by the mirror-like floor could be seen; in fact, the floor wasn't visible because the ceiling reflected in it.

"I created this so that we could finish our last conversation here in peace," he said as they sat down in the armchairs, which appeared to Aelita as surprisingly comfortable.

"What did we finish at? Something unstable and transitory..."

"Weather", Aelita smiled. "We were discussing the aspect of butterfly effect in the context of weather on Earth."

"You have such a good memory!" He complimented her and smiled again.

At the same time impatience and worry grew in Jeremie. The transfer hadn't started yet and, what Aelita was completely unaware of, he had to listen to the conversation. In order not to waste time, he decided to take a look at what he already received. He typed a few commands and called up a long column of code, which he started to examine. Soon he gave up; the programme was written in a language that wasn't even similar to any he programmed in before(and he knew quite a lot of them). It looked like Franz Hopper wrote the programme in his own code which no one but him could understand.

He took a look at the time. He and Aelita already spent an hour in the factory and nothing was happening. Jeremie's patience almost ran out. To stretch himself up, he stood up from his seat and reached for the microphone, which lay on the floor. He put it in his ear instinctively; what he heard was beyond his imagination.

On Lyoko, XANA stood up form his place and took Aelita by both hands, making her stand up too. With his face dead serious, he kneeled in front of her and looked straight in her eyes.

"Aelita," he began, slowly speaking her name, "do not ever come back to Earth. Stay here, with me, forever."

Aelita stood still as she heard it. She opened her mouth to speak her mind about that insane idea, but he continued.

"Listen to me, Aelita. I have been recently considering a lot about life in your world. And I made a conclusion that it is not your world. It is not worth you. It is so imperfect and full of danger that I am increasingly afraid of your every hour spent on Earth. And it is your safety that concerns me the most."

"Stay and you will become the Mistress of the Internet. If you do, the concerns of earthly life will never reach you. Here, in a world without danger, you'll be truly happy."

"That's insane," she whispered, completely stunned by these words.

Thousands of thoughts went through her mind, most of which screaming, "Insanity!" But after a while another thoughts had their say – absurd. It cost her so much to free herself from the virtual world, where she was imprisoned by her father, and now her once worst enemy was asking her to stay there forever? She glanced at him with her answer ready. The answer which was too obvious.

"I can't imagine it to be otherwise," he added.

But before Aelita managed to say anything, frustration in Jeremie reached its zenith. He couldn't stand it anymore. He called up an appropriate programme with shaking fingers and hit the Enter key. Soon, the entire lab was filled with a blinding white light of oblivion.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER 6**

Aelita ran through the park as fast as she could to the manhole leading down to the sewers. She ran, trying to escape from the memories of a day – the day which repeated so surprisingly. Unfortunately, those painful memories were haunting her.

_Morning. She met everybody except Jeremie at the breakfast. __They exchanged surprised glances._

"_Why is it__ Thursday again?," William asked._

"_Return to the past," Yumi answered, "But who launched it, and why?"_

"_Jeremie... only he was able to do it, he was in the factory," Ulrich said. _

_Aelita only shrugged. She had no idea what could have happened._

"_Anyway, where is he?" asked William, who still was amazed with the effects of a return to the past._

_Jeremie wasn't with them. He didn't show up at breakfast._

"_If Jeremie thinks the school will forget about the bouquet, he's wrong. Aelita got it yesterday," Odd noticed._

"_Something must have happened in the factory," Yumi assumed, "Jeremie didn't warn you about any problems, did he?" she asked Aelita._

"_No, nothing," Aelita admitted, "But you wouldn't believe in what XANA offered me..."_

She would never forget her friends' reactions.

"_Oh my..."_

"_Insane..."_

"_And what, are you going to take it?"_

"_But it still doesn't explain Jeremie's weird behaviour..."_

How could she know that Jeremie knew about everything? And, more importantly, that he would take it so dead seriously?

_After classes, s__he made a decision and confidently stepped in his room._

"_Jeremie, __ please explain to me what's going on with you", she asked, "You act strange, refuse to speak to us, and now launch a return to the past without a good reason."_

"_What do you mean?__" he started nervously._

"_It's about XANA, isn't it? __Stop acting like a baby, you know very well that he had always been my-our enemy, and he will remain one!" she said angrily._

"_But chatting with him is nice, isn't it? And that bouquet. __And it all lead up to him begging_ you to stay with him!_" _

"_What...?" she asked, surprised._

"_Don't deny it, I heard your conversation," he attacked._

"_You're so stubborn, I feel like I am talking to a wall. You'll burst out of your jealousy someday, so let me give you some advice. __Cool it!"_

_She felt she would burst in tea__rs, but __ she didn't want to create a scene__ in front of him. She managed to give him the most mad look she could and walked out of the room and slammed the door. _

The memory of that awful fight with Jeremie was the most painful of all. She couldn't believe that Jeremie so suddenly refused to trust her to such an extent. That's why she was so furious.

_I'll teach him a lesson_, she thought as she went down the elevator to the scanner room. She was determined to show him how wrong he was.

At the same time, Jeremie was sitting in his room in front of the computer.

He indeed was jealous. Aelita looked like she really enjoyed staying with XANA. She would report everything to their friends with details; they asked her for that as they found XANA in love as an absolutely fascinating phenomenon.

Immediately he recalled their talks, especially the most recent. _What an A.I. is supposed to know about feelings, he wondered, if his knowledge of them was so approximate! What is it... he... supposed to know about love?_ He recalled his speeches which sounded like some cheap romance. And the bouquet... he was pretty sure it was from him. _How pathetic, and she accepts it!_, he thought, hiding his face in his hands.

He tried to gather himself together and started a long scheduled hard disk cleaning. As he watched the progress of the cleaning programme, he wondered if the whole situation was his fault. They rarely talked to each other recently; they used to do everything together and he realized that he rather worked alone for the past few weeks. In addition he still clearly remembered their fight before the Subdigitals concert, the one she performed at as a support. Although he managed to wipe out a disastrous impression he had made on her after the RTTP, he felt that she didn't fully forgive him that act of egoism.

Such miserable thoughts occupied his mind when he was digging through his documents folder in search of rubbish. Suddenly, one file caught his attention. In spite of a long name consisting of numbers and letters, he knew what it was. It was one of temporary files he created when he looked for the sender of the message Aelita received on Tuesday. He thought he deleted them all, but seemingly he must have overlooked this one. He could not recall checking it out, so he launched Notepad and loaded the content of the file. When he looked at it he couldn't believe in what he had just found.

At the same time, having virtualized herself in the desert region, Aelita sat down on a rock, waiting for XANA to show up. She hoped he would eventually find her. At the same time she was repeating in her mind what she wanted to tell him.

She didn't have to wait long. Soon a bright blue sphere appeared on the plateau and a well-known dark silhouette in a long cloak emerged from it. It came closer and bowed as it had in habit.

"What made you pay such an unexpected visit?" he asked. She was surprised that he didn't remember any of what happened before.

"Well. I have something to..." she started, but eventually lost courage. "Oh the last ride on Manta's back was awesome. How 'bout one more time?" she asked to change topics.

"With pleasure."

He called the Manta and soon they flew to the distant plateau.

Back at the dorm Ulrich tried to learn Physics as Return to the Past gave him an extra afternoon to study for the coming exam. His roommate Odd played with Kiwi. The dog, which was eager to play with his master as usual, was barking loudly, which eventually irritated Ulrich.

"Odd, can you two be quieter please? I'm trying to study," he said, rising his sight from the book.

"Understand Kiwi, he has to bark," Odd retorted.

"And understand me for this one time. I have to make my Physics grades better," Ulrich said, returning to glancing at the equations for calculating work and power of electricity.

"Relax, the test is next week," Odd said, carefree as usual.

"Exactly, next week. And I'm not going to waste time like you," Ulrich grew angry. He hoped to concern Odd, as well, but he seemed to remain exactly as careless as before.

"I'll go to Einstein the day before, he will explain it all to me much better than the book," Odd said and reached for a can of dog food, as it was time to feed Kiwi.

"Were I in your shoes I wouldn't count much on Einstein. He'll recite the book from memory to you," Ulrich joked. Mentioning Jeremie, he put the book down and looked at Odd.

"Jeremie... he is acting really strange, isn't he?"

"You have to be blind not to notice," Odd said, as he opened the can and filled Kiwi's bowl.

"I support what I said before, he's jealous. He's been many times before and gone back to normal. I understand him partly, I wouldn't be too happy if an A.I. wanted to take my girlfriend away..."

Ulrich wasn't convinced.

"But... how did he find out? Aelita said there was no chance," he noticed.

"That's why I hope she took my advice and talked to him," Odd answered.

"I'm curious what she fond out."

"We can go and ask her when Kiwi finishes. Or, I have an even better idea – let's go to Einstein and try to reason to him to make up with her."

"I wouldn't interfere. Let them solve their problems," Ulrich said and went back to studying.

A moment later the door suddenly opened and Jeremie fell into the room. He looked extremely terrified; he was looking around the room insanely. He scared Kiwi with his sudden appearance. The dog jumped from his bowl and started barking at Jeremie.

Einstein calmed down when he found his friends.

"Oh, check out who just came..." Odd joked.

He went serious when he saw fear on Jeremie's face.

"What's going on?" he asked and tried to calm down Kiwi.

"Have no time to explain... I'll tell you in the factory... let's call William and Yumi and go... faster!" Jeremie sputtered.

Back on Lyoko, Manta was slowly floating above the desert sector. As Aelita looked down, she felt relief and finally could distance from unpleasant memories. Having a rare opportunity of seeing the sector from above, she just realized how beautiful it was. Unlike in mountain sector, where the fog hid the details of the ground from sight, the air was clear and she could see the structure of the sector even better. It consisted of ten plateaus with a tower on each and several smaller ones, bound together with a system of paths. Every rock and tree could be seen, as well as the sparkling surface of digital sea.

"Jeremie, will you tell us what's going on or not?" Yumi asked impatiently when they met in the factory near the elevator. Jeremie took a deep breath.

"Me and Aelita had a fight... and... and I think that... she wants to escape with XANA to the network."

"Whaaat?" the rest shouted simultaneously.

„We have to stop her... before she does something stupid..." Jeremie mumbled, pressing the down button in the elevator.

As they arrived at the lab, Jeremie jumped on the armchair immediately to asess the situation. He saw that Aelita virtualized herself to Lyoko, but he couldn't contact her because of a large window, where, to Jeremie's surprise...

"But... how is that possible... he..."

... Franz Hopper was transmitting his programme.

"Darn, too late! I can't do anything," he said.

"So what are we going to do now?" William asked.

"Wait..." Jeremie said and rested on the chair helplessly.

The flight above the desert sector has come to an end and Manta's passengers got off near the rocks where the ride started.

"You have not answered what called you to Lyoko all of a sudden," he said.

Silence.

"I..." Aelita started, "I wanted to thank you for the bouquet."

"What bouquet?" he asked, smiling.

"That bouquet... I know it's from you."

"Oh, that one! I am so glad you like it," he recalled.

"Secondly," she started. He gave her a questioning look, „I... deeply thought over your last offer."

XANA hardly remembered about the bouquet, but the offer, which was unable to refuse, a request for her to never come back to Earth and stay with him in the virtual world, forever... He grinned, prepared for an answer he expected.

"I have to refuse. I can't stay here forever. My friends need me. I can't leave them alone."

He looked at her, schocked.

"I do not belong to Lyoko. Since always," she explained.

"Master has different opinion," he said with sad voice, putting an accent on word "Master".

"Who is that master you're always talking about? And what does he have in common with me?" she asked.

"Master..." he repeated. "He never told me his real name. He always told me to call him Master."

Aelita was even more curious. "You said a lot of good things about him. Was he your friend?"

"Not exactly, no. He was more than a friend to me. He was my Master, after all. He taught me everything. Thanks to him I became who I am now. Thanks to him I learned about... you."

"Me?", Aelita repeated.

"Yes. As he was teaching me, he often spoke your name. He once said, Love her, for goodness sake! Never turn your rage against her. Love her, treat Aelita as opposite as you are supposed to treat Carthage. "

Aelita was stunned. XANA was talking about her father!

At the same time in the lab, Jeremie and the others observed the progress of transmission of the programme. Odd, Ulrich, Yumi and William were just staring at slowly moving lines of code, even more amazed, as they didn't have Jeremie's knowledge. A few moments later less and less code appeared, and eventually the transfer process was over.

"Franz Hopper... he just signalized the programme's ready," Jeremie mumbled.

The gigantic window disappeared and image from Lyoko showed up.

"Master has different opinion," XANA repeated in a mechanical tone.

"He does? I think he had something different in mind," Aelita answered after a while of silence, still being stunned by her revelation.

"I... do not think so..." He said slowly and an evil shine appeared in his eyes. He reacted in the way Aelita was the most afraid of. He showed his dark nature, which didn't take refusal and objection into account.

He took her by her hand with all brutality and tried to pull her to his side.

"Hey! Leave me alone!"

That was what Jeremie heard when he gained control over the system.

"Aelita? What is going on! Answer me!" he cried with fear.

"I don't... know... It looks very bad..." she answered, still struggling against a mighty grip.

"_Act fast, before its too late..."_ Jeremie thought in despair, typing commands with shaking hands. He hit the Enter key and gasped with relief when a yellow triangle disappeared from the map.

All Lyoko Warriors sat down on the floor in the lab, so that they could easily see each other. Every of them knew that he/she knew only a part of the truth about what happened today. That was why they waited with growing impatience for explanations given from the main characters of today's mess, namely Aelita and Jeremie. But when they gathered together, there was silence; such silence when everybody expects someone to speak while not being interested in being the one who begins. Eventually they all gave a non-verbal sign to Jeremie. They were used to him explaining all inconsistencies and solving all mysteries. However, Jeremie himself didn't know what he should begin with.

"Maybe return to the past?" William suggested as this phenomenon interested him the most since the morning. Jeremie gasped, confused.

"It was me. No Odd, I will cite Jim and say I'd rather not talk about it," he said when Odd requested for more specific explanation.

"OK, let's go on. XANA's change, Franz Hopper and his programme we just received... what connects them?" Yumi asked.

"It was Franz Hopper who planned and started all this," Jeremie claimed.

A wave of surprise went through faces of Odd's, Yumi's, Ulrich's and William's.

"Now listen carefully. You remember the message Aelita received on Tuesday?"

"'Course we do, who would forget such beautiful love letter?" Odd joked.

"XANA did not send it himself. Franz Hopper made him do so. A temporary file I found today confirms that."

"But how did Hopper manage to alter the whole XANA?" Yumi could not get it. Jeremie had an answer ready.

"Do you remember Marabounta? One shot in its core programme was enough to destroy it. It turns out XANA is built in a similar way. He's a multi-agent programme, but his threads aren't independent. Franz Hopper knew about it and he used it to make changes in XANA's programme." He stopped and took a deep breath. "Fine, I won't bother you with details, that's it," he said when he noticed say-any-more-to-us grimaces on their faces.

Aelita had her own conclusions.

"Now I understand! Thanks to tower deactivation on Monday XANA lost control over his supercomputers for milliseconds. That's where my father could take control over them and launch some command or a short programme which overwrote changes, which made XANA turn evil. I mean, bring his previous nature back. "

„What previous nature?" William asked.

"Before I was rematerialized, XANA confessed to me who Master was, although indirectly, but Master is definitely my father, He could teach him everything, including his plan to destroy Carthage."

„That matches..." Jeremie agreed. "XANA was supposed not only to destroy Project Carthage, but also to protect your family against danger, to let you live in peace."

„Which means that XANA was programmed to love Aelita before?" Odd summed up.

"Exactly. My father managed to wake XANA's original nature, which was covered by the evil one," Aelita said.

It became silent again. Although all they heard sounded logical, they still were under an impression that it was too unbelievable to be true. They had to give themselves a break to let the flow of facts run through their minds. Then Ulrich had one more question.

"If XANA's no longer evil, then why did Franz send his programme in parts? Why only when Aelita was on Lyoko? It looked like he was afraid of something."

"XANA's alteration is unstable," Jeremie noticed. "He activated Replikas again some time ago, then the Specter, disturbances in transfer... Aelita's father could not contact us one day... Thank goodness we have that programme."

"Today XANA came back to being his old self. When I told him I wouldn't stay on Lyoko forever, he got mad and behaved as if he wanted to capture me there by force," Aelita confessed. Jeremie felt relieved that he managed to bring her back to Earth just in time.

"What about the programme? Do you know how it works?" Ulrich grew curious.

„Not yet. Its pieces need to be merged and then I'll be able to tell you how we can use it. Aelita, would you help me? If we work together, we can make things go a lot faster," he asked with hope in his voice.

"Of course," Aelita replied and smiled lightly.

„We'll let you two work in peace, meanwhile we'll go to the dorm." Odd stood up and stretched himself.

"I have to go home," Yumi said, glancing at her watch.

The doors closed behind the four of them and soon Jeremie and Aelita were alone in the lab.

"Listen", Jeremie began and blushed slightly, "I... I wanted to apologize for how I've been acting recently... I don't know what's gotten into me. I behaved like a... an idiot," he stammered. He finally understood his mistakes and really didn't want her to be angry at him.

"I think I overreacted as well," she said.

"No... it was me who started. I.. oh God... will you forgive me?" he asked sheepishly. She placed her hand on his shoulder and smiled.

"It's OK. Everybody makes mistakes. I'm glad something finally reached you! Next time, just don't take things too seriously and cool it, Mr. Einstein!" she said and poked him for fun.

„Yeah... I'm still working on it. Fine. let's go to work, I bet you'd rather not spend the whole night here, would you?"


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER 7**

Time passed quickly for a pair of young geniuses who were working on the programme. The whole process took them less time than they expected. In the meantime they made an important discovery. They discussed its importance and reasons why Franz Hopper chose such solution long after the end of programming. They agreed to present the results of their work to their friends the next morning.

They left the lab as the hour of a safe comeback to the dorm without making Jim suspicious loomed. In comparison to cold and smelly air in the factory it was warm and pleasant outside. It wasn't completely dark yet. The orange aura in the sky indicated that the sun set not long ago.

Aelita and Jeremie walked through the bridge in silence, listening to the sounds of the city. As they went to the other side, they decided not to go through the sewers, but they chose a longer route which led by river shore.

As they explained all misunderstandings of the last week, they could finally talk to each other in a normal way.

"Your father really tricked me. If only I knew it was all his doing..." said Jeremie, who couldn't get over Franz Hopper's creativity and cunning.

"That's amazing, soon we'll see each other face to face, I can't wait!" Aelita said intently.

"Me too, Aelita..." Jeremie sighed. He also was happy to meet her father the genius, which seemed more possible than any time before.

That was when they took a turn into the street where the Academy was; on their right they were passing its grounds, surrounded by high, wrought-iron fence.

"I'm curious how the others will react when we present them our plan tomorrow!" Aelita said joyfully.

"We can be sure of one thing, they will be amazed," Jeremie replied, "We'll succeed this time and then, we'll truly breathe with relief."

„You know what, we could launch this programme already. Can you imagine their faces if they found out it's all over?"

"How many times will I tell you it'd be too dangerous? I won't send you to Lyoko alone after what happened today."

"OK, OK, I was joking."

"Aelita..."

„What?" she asked, sensing slight irritation in his voice.

At that moment they were about to walk through the gate which led to the school grounds. In the distance they could see the lights in the dorm's windows.

Aelita was about to again convince Jeremie that she was joking when she felt his grip on her hand. Remembering Xana's strong grip, she instinctively wanted to back it off, but when she realized that her fear was unreasonable, she gave him her second hand with no resistance_. _But when she took a closer look at his face, she noticed that it showed not slightest irritation, but rather worry and concern.

Noticing her investigating gaze, Jeremie looked down sheepishly. He wanted to admit to her he was serious. He really was worried about her and he'd say goodbye to this world if anything bad happened to her.

"Let's go, Jim's looking for us for sure," he said at last, failing to gather courage to say his worries aloud.

Holding her hand all the way, Jeremie walked her to the girls' floor. As they arrived there, they heard Jim, who was making an evening inspection and checking presence in the rooms on the other end of the corridor.

"Bye, see you tomorrow," Aelita said.

"Goodnight," Jeremie answered. As he released her hand he watched like in slow motion, firstly her hand slipping from his own; then her, walking down the corridor, opening the door to her room, smiling to him before disappearing inside…

Jim called him, bringing him back to reality.

"Belpois, what are you doing here that late? You're lucky I haven't visited your floor yet. To your room, immediately!"

Not saying a word, Jeremie nodded and ran to his room. As he closed the door behind him, he fell on his bed heavily. He felt too tired to move and turn the light on, so he sat in the darkness, leaning against the wall. He closed his eyes and soon any sounds of dorm life, which used to annoy him – neither footsteps on the corridor, door slamming, not Matthias Burel's Aerosmooth newest album, playing for hundredth time – could not reach his mind. He did not care about Jim's inspection and forgot about his mood swings.

Jeremie's thoughts were focused entirely on the moment of oblivion he experienced a few minutes earlier. He was under an impression that, just like in one of his dreams, Aelita still held his hand and, having given him a warm and joyful smile, lifted him from his bed and took him on an never ending walk into unknown…

Jeremie's thinking was suddenly interrupted by a ring of his cell phone, which laid on the bed, left there in a hurry. He reached for it very slowly. It was his father who called.

„Hi Dad…" He answered with a sleepy voice. "You called me five times? No, everything's fine… I- I'm just tired, I had a hard day."

"Huh? Yeah, Aelita's fine too… Oh. You bought them? Yeah, I remember when we talked about it, Dad… You sent them to the Academy by post? No, I haven't received them yet. Thanks… Yes… I'll tell Aelita from Mom! Mhm, I'm going to sleep. Goodnight."

Jeremie hung up. He remembered the conversation with his father when he was at home last time. How could he forget about a surprise he prepared for Aelita, which he promised her some time ago? _"I have to discuss it with the others tomorrow,"_ he thought.

After talking to his dad Jeremie felt a lot less tired. He got up, turned the light on and started preparations for Jim's inevitable visit.

At the same time one floor above, Aelita was about to go to the bathroom. She was satisfied with the outcome of her plan. _"Everything's back to normal,"_ she thought when she memorized the evening spent with Jeremie. If only you could see how happy she was!

She felt as if she forgot how enjoyable talking with him was. She recalled ancient times when Jeremie would get up in the middle of the night to talk with her about anything; countless hours spent together by the supercomputer when they worked on her antivirus and virtual submarine some time later; the evenings spent in his room, for which they once got punished by Jim.

She realized that they had just gone through a crisis which they tackled many times before and so far none of them – even this one, which seemed to her as the end of the world just some hours ago – wasn't able to divide them definitely. _"Ulrich's right,"_ she thought, recalling her friend's words. She took her soap and towel and almost dancing, she went to the bathroom.

A hot shower washed the rest of her unpleasant thoughts, so she was in an even better mood. She was about to leave the showers when she met Sissi, who came just to wash her teeth judging by toothpaste and brush she had with her.

"Goodnight, Sissi," Aelita said and humming some melody, she went back to her room.

Not replying, principal's daughter walked to a free basinand squeezed some toothpaste on her brush, at the same time glancing at the reflection of the mirror to watch Aelita leaving the bathroom. To tell the truth, Sissi was not too eager to wash her teeth. A visit in the bathroom was a good occasion to gossip with other girls.

"Aelita looks really proud of herself recently, doesn't she?" Sissi said to Taelia, who occupied a washer near her.

"What's strange about that? To me, she always has positive attitude to life," Taelia answered. "Yeah, if you get bouquets, then it's normal," Sissi continued.

"Oh my, and you about these flowers again…" Dark red-haired girl sighed. Sissi didn't say anything as she finally decided to make use of her toothbrush.

Taelia looked at her classmate with knew about the bouquet, of course, but she didn't make so much fuss about it, unlike most people who got excited after what jealous Sissi told them.

"Who knows, maybe it's Jeremie's doing?" Taelia smiled. She belonged to a small, but quite influential fraction which, hearing the gossips about the bouquet story, couldn't help smiling. The members of the group shared an opinion that "a mysterious admirer", as Sissi called that person, was in fact a well-known person who was sending to the world a clear message that it (or rather he) had a crush on Aelita.

"Jeremie? You must be joking!" Sissi almost shouted when she spitted out the remains of the toothpaste. "Have you ever heard about a girl at our age getting such an expensive gift? I think it must be from someone older than us."

"Who do you have in mind?" Taelia asked, being interested in what new theory Sissi invented. She had a funny feeling that Sissi somehow tried to harm Mr. and Ms Einstein's reputation.

"Someone from outside the school, and much older," Sissi said. "I noticed Aelita keeps on disappearing somewhere after school. Maybe she met someone during her work with The Subdigitals?" she added, loud enough to be heard by the rest of the girls in the bathroom.

"How do you imagine that? Aelita would... date some old guy?" Taelia asked, barely hiding her outrage.

"You know, I wouldn't be surprised if she did," Sissi answered with self-confidence and sneered. "She tried to catch Jeremie's attention long enough. Maybe she finally realized that his only love is... computers!"

That was when Taelia read Sissi's intentions. She knew that Sissi never liked Aelita, Jeremie and their friends. However she did not expect such open hate. She felt she needed to defend the gang and decided to speak her mind. She dragged the attention of the rest of the girls in the bathroom, who listened to her cautiously.

"You don't know them. Hate and jealousy, that's what you judge them by. You won't convince anyone with such arguments. Because it's not them with who there's something wrong – it's with you."

Being too proud and not willing to admit she was wrong, Sissi looked at Taelia as if she wanted to say "you're going to regret this". She took her toothpaste and brush and got out of the bathroom. The girls observed Taelia and were whispering something to each other. Most of them silently agreed with her and all of them were impressed with what she had just done.

Taelia, who used to rather back off the company, changed a lot since she came to the Academy. With time she gained a reputation of a very straightforward person who was not afraid to speak her mind. But even with that, such open stand against Sissi required courage and self-confidence.

Soon the girls went back to their rooms, still talking about that unusual confrontation.

At the same time Aelita, who was completely unaware of the fact that she became a topic of a duel between Sissi and Taelia, still could not sleep. She lay in her bed and stared at the ceiling, not being able to get over what happened that day. It was because of the discoveries she made, the most important of which being who actually sent the mysterious message. Two simple sentences, "thank you" and "I love you" had much wider meaning for her. They really cheered her up, giving a signal that her father was alive, was thinking of her; he loved her and believed they would meet really soon. Then she was wondering of what awaited her and her friends the next day, as that day was supposed to be the memorable day when their fight against XANA, after many failures and hard times, would come to an end.

She found herself in a mysterious place. It looked like a gigantic chamber, filled with rows of columns, which were growing towards the sky like gigantic trees and were getting even thinner as they went down, finally disappearing in the darkness of the depths. The whole thing looked amazing and that impression was multiplied by blue light coming from above.

As she stood among the columns, she began to wonder what she was doing there and why did she not fall into the never-ending depth below her. As if in answer to her questions, a bright light flashed and lit the chamber from above. At the same time the surface of the columns turned into gigantic mirrors.

When she looked at her reflection, she was stunned and amazed at once. She was dressed in a long, pink, futuristic-looking dress with no arms and atrain. Her hair grew a spectacular length she never dreamed of; on her head there was something crown-like, from which were coming out long rays of light. She really liked her new incarnation, which was full of pride and respect.

She was even more surprised when she saw a reflection of what was behind her. There was a Scyphozoa, such gigantic and powerful one she had never seen before. Then she realized why she floated above the abyss; she was standing on the monster's tentacles, which humbly lifted her virtual body.

"How do you like it, Mistress?" A well-known, mild voice asked.

"It is… awesome," she answered, as she felt a flow of unspeakable amazement.

Her eyes shone and the flash reflected in the mirrors. Then she had a strange feeling, which appeared rather familiar. She felt so light and free of hundreds of thoughts which usually were occupying her mind. At that moment she had only one – how wonderful was to be who she had become.

"Let's go on," the voice ordered.

The mirrors disappeared. The Scyphozoa drifted between two rows of columns like through a corridor towards a source of weak light in the distance.

As they arrived there, she saw an empty space with a platform floating in the middle. On the platform stood dozens, if not hundreds of shadow-like persons. As they noticed her being led into the chamber on the jellyfish-like monster, they shouted in unison with crystal clear voice:

"_All hail Aelita, the Queen of the Internet..._"

"The Queen," Aelita repeated in her thoughts, charmed with such welcome. She was happy and also proud of such distinction.

"Who are they?" She whispered.

"These are your devotedservants, already awaiting your orders," the voice answered. "They deserve respect for their patience and devotion. They expect you to appreciate it. Let them feel noticed and needed."

Aelita raised her hand and waved a little. The silhouettes bowed. The voice spoke again.

"Excellent. Now, Mistress, I would like to show you something very special."

Suddenly, they began to rise up, higher and higher. As they rose, the platform was even lower and soon, as Aelita convinced herself by looking down for the last time, it disappeared in the darkness. Then she raised her sight and saw light above her, which seemed even brighter as she was coming closer to it. She instinctively closed her eyes a moment before, as she anticipated, the light would blind her. However, when she opened them again, she saw an absolute darkness around her. She looked around in fear, hoping to eventually see something.

"Close your eyes," The voice said calmly.

Aelita closed her eyes. Firstly she saw nothing, but soon she started to notice little lights in front of her. With time there were even more sources of light; some of them grew bigger and brighter than the others. Then they were being bound by shining paths which divided and linked, creating geometrical patterns.

A magnificent view appeared under Aelita's eyelids; it reminded her of a city at night. She opened her eyes to check if anything changed to notice she was still surrounded by darkness, so she closed them again. The view came back even more detailed and beautiful than before. This time, apart from a shiny web she saw something else. Right in front of her there was a stream of soft, golden light, sparkling and flowing like water. The stream emitted energy; Aelita felt it with her entire self, it was as enjoyable as a warmth from a fire; she wanted to come closer and fully drown in its beauty, power and warmth...

Suddenly the image dissolved and disappeared. Aelita opened her eyes to see emptiness again. She closed them again, but this time the view didn't come back.

"What was that?" she asked. If she could not see anything anymore, she at least wanted to know what it was what she just experienced.

"It was the Internet, seen from above in its entire beauty," the familiar voice answered.

"And that stream of light? The energy...?"

"I cannot uncover that mystery for you now."

It hurt her. How come was she the queen and wasn't allowed to know all the secrets?

"Beautiful, isn't it?" She heard after a while.

"I could watch it for the eternity..." She whispered miserably. A virtual tear rolled down her cheek. Her mind was filled with longing for seeing the view again.

"Make a wise choice and you will be able to look at it as long as you want. What's more, you'll be able to call it wherever you are."

"_Make a choice..." _ the echo repeated.

A mind of young girl started to wander in the maze of dreams and imagination.

"How wonderful it would be to leave the weight of living on Earth...not have to worry and suffer anymore... The power lies in your hands... you won't be the object of jealousy, only respect, almost fear... you won't have to suffer for the actions you had no influence at, for your parents' mistakes, for being the child of that person and not the other..."

"Yes, Aelita," the voice joined the choir of voices, "power and happiness are at stretch of your hand, it's your decision if you reach for them..."

Suddenly the silence of the morning was interrupted by the sound of mobile phone; the Subdigitals polyphonic melody came out of the speaker, announcing the time to rise and shine.

Mad that the sound woke her up from a pleasant dream, Aelita rose and reached for her mobile and turned the melody off. At that moment she fully woke up; after a while, she recalled her dream like a film, rewinding in her memory with great speed.

"You won't trick me, XANA!" she said angrily when she realized what she just dreamt of.

She threw her mobile on the bed and fell to the pillow again. She felt awful; for a moment she even was about to burst in tears. She was angry at herself that she eventually let XANA trick her. He tried to lure her to him with promises of wonderful life, this time in a dream. She was angry with the awareness of letting him manipulate with her thoughts. He tried to convince her that nothing bound her to Earth and she was about to agree with it!

"That's not true", she thought. She got up and took a look at her room, her small but very own place in the world. Then she walked to the window, from which she could see an empty schoolyard and a fragment of the park, which was proudly presenting its green roots in the morning sun. She felt tied to this world. Contrary to the virtual world, to which she had no sentiments, however beautiful and happy place it could appear. Her place was there, on Earth! Most of her worst memories were connected with Lyoko, world without touch and smell, where she was imprisoned for all these years.

Besides, she made a choice a long time ago. No, not when she refused to stay in the virtual world. She chose when she decided to fight against XANA together with her friends...

Aelita glanced at her watch. It was 7.15. Breakfast time was coming soon, so she had little time. She started to walk around the room and dress up. She decided not to bothereither herself or her friends with the dream she had.

"When the time comes, I'll tell them about everything."


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER 8**

As they made their way through the crowded cafeteria Yumi, Ulrich and Odd sat down at their favourite table near the window. Two of them did not start eating, as they waited for the others. Odd, as usual, could not resist and started with the croissants immediately after he took his seat. A moment later the three saw Jeremie and Aelita entering the cafeteria and standing in a queue to Rosa. They were talking cheerily; it seemed as if both of them were in great moods. Soon they noticed their friends by the table. Jeremie attracted Aelita's attention to them and waved hello. Odd waved back and helped himself with another bite of a croissant.

"Ah, so nice to see them together again," he sighed.

"Oh yeah, they can't hold out without each other for too long, can they?" Yumi added.

The boys giggled. All three of them had a right feeling that Jeremie and Aelita would make up very soon. They observed the two until they disappeared in the crowd.

In the meantime William came over to their table.

"Hi, can I sit down?" he asked hesitantly. He already noticed Jeremie and Aelita were not there, so he would rather ask.

Hearing William's question, the rest turned to him slowly. Odd gave him a friendly smile. Yumi, on the other hand, measured him with such a look that he received as a clear refusal.

The atmosphere by the table became tense.

"Eh, thanks, then," William said as he noticed their confusion. He let it go, seeing his question appeared to the three as imposition, and went on in search of a free place to sit.

Odd just let a short 'but' out of his mouth. Ulrich frowned and turned to Yumi, expecting her to explain her reaction. But before any question was asked, Jeremie came to the table.

"Hi, what's up? Where's William?" he asked, as he noticed William was lacking by the table.

Odd pointed in the direction where William headed to. Jeremie turned around and tried to spot him, but as he noticed how crowded the cafeteria was, he resigned.

"His choice. A pity he's not there, I have some good news," he said and pulled his plate with toasts closer to him.

"Anyway, where's Aelita?" asked Yumi, who was unwilling to continue the topic of William.

"Aelita's over there, talking with Milly and Tamiya," Jeremie said.

"What good news do you have?" Odd grew curious.

At that moment Jim entered the cafeteria, holding a box full of envelopes and packages.

"Mail!" he cried, trying to overcome the noise. All the chats immediately quieted down. Jim looked around, satisfied too prove his authority.

Jeremie observed Jim distributing the mail among the students and hoped to receive his long awaited package from home. Finally, Jim found him and squeezing between the tables, he handed him the envelope.

"There you have, Belpois." He turned to Odd. "Unfortunately, Della Robbia, I have nothing for you today. Which is a pity, because your mom's homemade pie was delicious," he said and left, not noticing an awkward look Odd gave him.

Jeremie turned the envelope in the air few times and examined it from all sides, whispering a content 'at last'.

"Hm, is that what I think it is, Einstein?" Odd asked and smiled to him meaningfully.

Jeremie nodded, blushing slightly, and hid the envelope in his bag.

It was a long ago since Jeremie admitted to Odd his plans about a certain 'surprise'. Odd was very proud of the fact that Jeremie decided to trust him and gave him the privilege of learning about it as the first in the group. What was making him even more satisfied was that Jeremie eventually would have to reveal his plan to the world. Odd giggled loudly, almost triumphantly, causing Jeremie to blush even darker.

"What's going on?" asked Yumi, who had enough of their enigmatic behaviour.

Still confused a bit, Jeremie gestured at them to lean above the table and explained her and Ulrich his idea.

As they talked, Aelita joined them.

"What are those whispers all about?" she asked joyfully and sat down on her usual seat near Jeremie. "Were you talking about our today's mission?" she turned to Jeremie.

Jeremie got completely confused when he realized her presence.

"Uh... yeah..." he answered fast, trying not to sound suspicious.

"What mission?" Odd asked without thinking his question over. Jeremie had enough time to scold him with an angry look for that thoughtless sentence. Aelita frowned in suspicion. Short, tense silence fell between them. Finally Ulrich hurried to help Jeremie.

"Yeah, Einstein, what misssion? 'Cause you talk and talk and you're still so mysterious..."

"Yeah, be more specific, because I lost the track," Odd added, trying to placate Jeremie.

"We know how to get rid of XANA!" Jeremie whispered sharply.

"Ah, so that's what you meant! We can really do it? Today?" Ulrich grew excited.

"Yes, we can do it after classes," Aelita assured him.

Jeremie sighed with relief. On one hand he was so angry at Odd; on the other, he was grateful to Ulrich for guiding the conversation in such direction so as not to rise any suspicions in Aelita. He was half-satisfied, though, as Ulrich's and Odd's replies sounded rather unnatural. Nevertheless, the secret remained secret.

"You're amazing, both of you," Odd admitted.

"It's not us, it's my father," Aelita retorted humbly.

"So, will I finally learn how we're gonna make it? Without any technical gibberish?" said Odd with an emphasis on 'gibberish'.

Jeremie drank some tea. Then he noticed in the corner of his eye that Sissi, who was sitting right in front of him, was paying attention as if she was trying to hear what caused such excitement in the group. Based on this he made his decision whether or not to continue the topic.

"Give me a break, I'll tell you everything after lunch, because," he hesitated, "because if I start going into the details here, you'll lose the track again!"

He glanced at him meaningfully to give a signal they still had a secret to hide. Odd nodded in understanding. He swallowed he last bite of his croissant and straightened in his seat.

"What did Milly and Tamiya ask you about?" he asked Aelita to change the topic.

"Oh, they wanted to talk about the bouquet," she said. "They told me they'd wanted to ask me about it for ages."

"And, what did you tell 'em?" Yumi asked.

"That, in my opinion, it must've come from some techno fan, who was stunned by my performance with Subdigitals. They seemed to believe it, 'cause they looked satisfied with such answer," she giggled.

"Nice one," Odd commented.

In the meantime the gang was being observed by Sissi, who sat with Herve and Nicholas on the table right next to them. Obviously she tried to eavesdrop as much as she could. It became her habit to spy on the gang, which always was up to no good and tried to hide their plans from her. She was additionally motivated by a previous evening's talk with Taelia. What's more, thanks to her, Sissi's observations on Jeremie and Aelita started to make sense. Sissi was convinced her intuition did not fail her in such cases. In this particular situation it was telling her that Aelita was trying to hide something. Having heard about the bouquet, she smirked. She never kept her contempt towards Mr. and Mrs. Einstein a secret and she'd be really pleased if things turned out not to be the way everyone around expected. She could already imagine herself saying triumphantly, "I was right, wasn't I?" But the fuss she recently made around them was not enough for her. She needed solid proof to claim victory.

The crowd in the cafeteria grew noticeably smaller. Only a few eight-graders were left. Most of them, including the gang, already finished breakfast and hurried to their first lesson, which was Biology. Their hurry was justifiable; the Biology class was placed "at the end of the world", as students said, namely on the top floor of science building, which laid far from the cafeteria. Herve and Nicholas already stood from behind the table. Sissi followed them, still considering her wicked plan.

On one of the breaks, after long hesitation and repeating what he wanted to say, Ulrich finally gathered his courage to walk to Yumi. Her behaviour by breakfast surprised him. Till then she seemed to be rather nice to William, like all of them. But when Aelita, who openly defended William, was not in sight, Yumi revealed all her offence against him. Ulrich really did not like that ambivalent treatment, which could only cause unnecessary tension in their group. Ulrich wasn't sure if Yumi was aware of that.

Yumi stood away from the rest of her classmates. She was turned to the window at the end of the corridor and was staring at the courtyard one floor below. Ulrich could draw only one conclusion from that posture. She wasn't in the mood to talk.

Ulrich stood next to her and turning away from the window, he leaned on the windowsill.

"Yumi, can we talk?" he started the conversation, trying to look her in her face at the same time.

"What's up?" she asked, her sight still focused on the view outside the window.

"Why did you treat William like that this morning?"

Yumi finally faced him. She looked worried.

"I... I don't know."

"You don't know what?"

"If... if we should've introduced William into all that. I have doubts if we should've... after what had happened."

"You didn't have them before," Ulrich noticed, "William was sitting with us, he was in the factory and you raised no objections."

"It's... something else. I didn't object, 'cause-"

"Let me guess- 'cause Aelita was there."

Yumi didn't answer, stunned by his observation. Ulrich continued.

"You really ought to have talked to her before and spit it out... your doubts, as you called it. She wouldn't be mad at you."

"She trusts him," Yumi sighed heavily, "like nothing happened at all. And I... can't."

"Listen," Ulrich went on, "William really has changed. I noticed that when he was on Lyoko. He's not like before. He became... humble... and I think he might understand what he packed himself into..."

"Oh, since when you defend him, too? What made you like him all of a sudden?"

"Nothing!" Ulrich answered quickly. "I just think he has the right to know. He's in it just as we are. And secondly, I say that because I voted myself for him joining us. Only you had objections, remember?"

"I can tell you, I really wish I hadn't changed my mind then."

"But it'd happened and it's not reversible, get over it! We have to take responsibility for our actions. William has to as well."

As he finished that sentence, the bell rang.

"Think of it. See ya," said Ulrich and headed to his class.

Not keeping her sight off Ulrich, Yumi walked to her backpack and slinging it on her left arm, she approached a group of her classmates. She looked as in the depth of the corridor Ulrich ran to the staircase and jumping through two stairs at once, hurried to the second floor.

Yumi was very surprised to discover that Ulrich, who used to be her natural ally, defended their once worst enemy. At first she didn't like it, but when she recalled his arguments in her memory she realized he must have had an important reason for it. She could only wonder what did William impress him with on Monday. It was sooner that day when she realized she did not tell Ulrich the whole truth. She had one more reason to stay away from William, but she would rather not admit it to him. She did not feel ready to do so.

Ulrich joined his class just in time; the teacher, Professor Chardin, did not notice he was late. He joined the last classmates in the crowd in the classroom door and hurried to his usual seat.

After presence check, Chardin stood up and spoke with his incomparable accent:

"On Tuesday your class was on a trip to Musee d'Orsay with Professor Fumet. On today's class we'll see how much knowledge is left in your heads after that trip. You'll work today in groups of four."

Jeremie, Ulrich, Aelita and Odd immediately sat down together to make a group.

"Each group will receive a print of a painting you had an opportunity to see in the museum. Your task is to present its interpretation and tell something to the class about the artist."

Chardin opened a large folder he brought with him into class and walked through the room, distributing large color prints, at the same time explaining the methodology of their work.

"Hey, where've you been on last break? Did you talk to Yumi by any chance?" Odd whispered to Ulrich when Chardin walked to the other side of the classroom.

"Yeah. she doesn't trust William," Ulrich answered.

"But he's a part of the group, she likes it or not," Aelita butted in.

"That's what I tried to tell her," Ulrich said.

"William understands more than Yumi thinks, and he really wants to help us," Aelita added.

"We'll need him today. We'll need all of you, in fact," muttered Jeremie.

"You may begin," announced Chardin, when each group was given a print.

"Hey isn't it Emil Zola by any chance?" Odd smiled when he recognized the print they received. "Monet!" he added, looking hopefully at Jeremie.

"Manet..." Jeremie corrected him.

"Odd, it seems that you remember hardly nothing from this trip..." Ulrich joked.

"Ah, they have such similar surnames!" Odd retorted.

As they had no trouble with making a short presentation, they finished first. Since they had to wait for the other groups to finish, they took care of themselves. Odd pulled out some notebook and started to put his artistic visions on its back pages. Ulrich took Physics textbook and revised Electricity.

Aelita observed group of Sissi's who seemed extremely irritable. She would bear grudge against Julien who was left alone at the group forming and had to join Sissi's group, and was standing over Herve and nervously rushing him to do notes. As a result Herve got mad, which would end up with him bursting in tears unless Nicholas managed to calm his friend down.

Professor Chardin, occupied by another book about art, was not going to interfere.

Bored Jeremie rested his chin on his hand and took a look at the class. He quickly noticed that some of the groups had a very carefree attitude to their task and sat idle. One of them was a group of Sissi's followers, whose only occupation was constant gossiping.

Jeremie froze when he heard his name in the stream of words coming from those girls. They were sitting quite close to him, so he was able to eavesdrop their conversation.

"Poor Jeremie... But I saw that coming," said one of them. "You know what, I have pity for him."

"Pity for that nerd? You must be joking!" laughed the other one.

"I have no pity for him at all," the third one butted in. "If _Aelita_ had enough of him, then he must've deserved that!"

"Yeah, he must've really lost contact with reality, too much computers and all," the fourth one joined them.

All four of them giggled simultaneously.

"And you see, Aelita still pretends that everything's fine between her and Jer'," the first one noticed.

"Oh how lucky she is, if it's true that she's going out with some handsome from town... maybe even from Subdigitals..." the fourth added excitedly and the rest sighed together.

"But how does Sissi know all that? Did she see them?"

"I heard her saying she didn't, but she'd find solid proof today!"

Jeremie listened to comments about him calmly; he heard so much of them in his life that he didn't care. But when fresh gossips about Aelita and "her secret admirer" reached his ears, his left brow started to twitch and he nervously played with his pencil. He knew the truth, so eventually his face blushed in anger.

He knew very well who the author of those gibberish was, and it wasn't that group of girls, who could only repeat them mindlessly. It was jealousy and hatred of stupid Sissi, who always wanted to make her ego even bigger, that was speaking through them. He involuntarily looked at Sissi, whose nasty character's power was being probed on Julien, and he was close to breaking the pencil in half. _"I won't let her treat Aelita like that, I won't"_, he swore in his mind and threw the pencil, which fell into the pencil case with a numb sound. Little did Sissi realize that she just woke up in Jeremie rarely seen will for revenge.

At the same time Chardin stopped reading and took a look at class. He put the book down and straightened up in his seat, signalizing that he wouldn't tolerate talking and general pandemonium.

"Thank you, time's over. Which group would like to be first to present their work?"

There was a silence, common when there were no volunteers. Groups which had nothing to be proud of dropped their eyes as if they wanted the teacher to claim they were invisible.

"No volunteers to talk about art?" asked disappointed Chardin, who hated to pick volunteers. "Oh, I see that Miss Delmas' group is very anxious to discuss!"

Everybody in the class looked at Sissi, who was still muttering something above Herve, who was about to finish the sentence. Too impatient to let him finish, she snatched the paper from under Herve's nose, ordered him to help her carry the print and started reading. Of course she immediately confused dates and names, causing the rest of the class to laugh. Herve tried to save the situation and was correcting her, which irritated her even more. Trying to hide her lack of competence, she started to smile awkwardly and made a speech about the painting using a very poetic language, which was commented by another burst of giggles. Eventually Chardin stopped that tragicomedy and thanked Sissi for her presentation, adding points for an original interpretation of the masterpiece. Sissi and Herve sat down, still quarrelling.

It was Jeremie's group's turn. Having exchanged meaningful nods with Odd, they stepped out in the middle of the classroom and began. Jeremie saw Sissi looking at him with contempt, so he did his best to make his presentation a shining example, exactly opposite to Sissi's. His plan of revenge on Sissi had just begun.


	9. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER 9**

Finally the so long awaited by the members of the group lunch break came. This time even for Odd food was not as important. Everybody was very excited when after a fast lunch they walked together to their bench in a distant part of the school grounds. There was also William, who was invited by Aelita.

"As you all know," Jeremie started, "through last week Franz Hopper was sending to us a programme. And just today when we got the last piece of it so that me and Aelita could merge it, we could figure out how it works. And it turns out we got something really unusual. Third key to Lyoko."

"Third key to Lyoko?" Ulrich repeated. "But... as far as I remember, there were only two keys, one belonged to Aelita and the other one to her father!"

"And if the third key exists, who does it belong to?" asked Yumi, who was as surprised as Ulrich. Aelita had an answer prepared.

"To the one who was supposed to live wit me and Dad on Lyoko. To my mom."

"But, if it existed, why do we learn about it now?" Ulrich kept asking.

"Because it was never written until now," Jeremie said. "Franz Hopper predicted the existence of third key in Lyoko's structure, but he never wrote it."

"He had another reason," Aelita added. "Third key has one specific property. It contains codes capable of causing XANA's auto destruction when all three keys are activated at the same time."

"Exactly," continued Jeremie. "I think XANA knew it and tried to kill Franz, so we could never use it. And that's why it was sent in pieces; to make it harder for XANA to intercept it."

There was a collective sigh of "wow" from the others, who were impressed with such clever plan.

"This Franz Hopper is unbelievable," said amazed William, "Did he play chess by any chance? Because I see chess player's mind in working here; planning a few moves ahead to forestall enemy's movements..."

"'Course he did!" laughed Aelita. "He even tried to teach me, but I wasn't too interested..."

"Anyway," interrupted Jeremie, "our aim today is launch the third key and get rid of XANA once and for all. Our plan is to send you all to Sector 5, so Aelita will launch it on the main terminal."

"But do really everybody have to go? XANA is no threat to us..." Ulrich was surprised.

"If Franz is cautious, then we ought to be, too," Jeremie explained quickly. "If everything goes as planned, you'll have nothing to do."

"What a shame, and I thought I'd crack the last monster's head," said Odd.

"I'd rather you were right. Let the last trip to Lyoko be a pleasant one," Yumi supported Jeremie.

"Well then, if you know everything, then we meet after classes in the factory."

"No need to say twice!" said William enthusiastically.

The break was coming to an end. The gang moved back to school. As they passed by the vending machines, Aelita decided to use a chance and talk to Yumi about William. She caught up with Yumi, who was walking slowly behind her, and stopped her by the machines.

"I hope you don't mind William going with us to Lyoko today?" she asked. She knew that Yumi already talked to Ulrich on the same topic earlier in the morning and she had to start differently then him.

Yumi shook her head indifferently.

"I don't mind... why not... why not..." she answered and shrugged. "Oh people, why you want to talk about William today so much...?" she got irritated and straightened up as if she wanted to leave. It was clear that she'd rather be left alone. But Aelita was not going to give up so easily. She leaned against the wall as if she wanted to block Yumi's way and told her of her talks to William. She mentioned also about what she learned from Ulrich and signified her full support for him, also that she should have talked to her earlier about her objections.

Yumi calmed down and felt uncomfortable, not only because she realized that she overreacted.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Come on, and don't feel guilty about it. Just tell me the truth... now."

Yumi did not answer for a while. Aelita often talked to her about her problems; why should she have any secrets to hide from her?

"Do you feel torn between William and Ulrich?" Aelita provoked her friend.

"Torn, huh?" Yumi was outraged. "I never was torn! It's William where the problem is! It's simply that... He still thinks things are like they were before XANA possessed him... and he thinks he still can mess in my head. He's a nice guy, _okay_, but I don't want to give him stupid hope that he's gonna be more than that-"

"So, why don't you tell Ulrich?"

"What?"

"Everything. Why... why you still hesitate to reveal your feelings to him?"

"Because..." Yumi paused, "because he took "the friends only" thing too seriously."

"Yumi Ishiyama who gives up so easily? Is still Yumi there?" Aelita was surprised with such attitude. "I think you... you shouldn't think of it that way. You should give him a chance."

"You think I didn't? He looks like he doesn't notice them."

"Oh Yumi, you pessimist..." Aelita smiled. "I see that you two still need more time."

"You're right. We need some more time..." Yumi sighed.

The girls walked away from the vending machines and came back to school, as the bell was about to ring. As they walked across the courtyard, in the distance of some 5 meters they passed a bench where boys were sitting and having a heated discussion. Aelita watched Ulrich, who was listening to Jeremie carefully and nodding at him in agreement. When Ulrich raised his head and noticed the girls heading to the main school building, he caught the attention of Jeremie and Odd that he noticed them. Aelita saw Jeremie who, glancing at his watch and having checked the time, gave a sign to stand up and join the girls. Ulrich was still looking at them – or rather at Yumi.

_"I hope it's not Yumi who took the "friends only" thing too seriously,"_ Aelita thought.

After the lunch the waiting was even more unbearable. Odd proposed seriously to skip the last lesson, but his friends treated it as rather a god joke. Skipping Chemistry class with Mrs. Hertz, who already observed them carefully due to constant runaways and being late in classes, was a straight way to detention; and additional obstacles on their way today were way less than welcome for the group.

The long awaited bell announcing the end of last lesson rang. The eight-graders left the classroom with shouts of joy due to the end of classes. The gang, especially Odd, were even more excited. But before they managed to leave the classroom, Professor Hertz asked Aelita to stay for a while. Aelita, feeling that it may take a while, told the boys not to wait for her and head straight to the factory.

The rest was about to run to the manhole in the park when Jeremie calmed them down and advised them to behave as natural as they could. His advice which purpose were to confuse Sissi turned out to be unnecessary, as Sissi's target was not them, but Aelita.

She waited for her to go out of the classroom, hidden behind a corner. She was equipped like professional paparazzo. In her pocket laid her new mobile phone with a camera, or rather – a mobile in a camera. Sissi was ready for hunting.

When Aelita left the classroom, Sissi followed her like a shadow. She followed her steps along the corridors and stairs, stopping from time to time to avoid being noticed. She leaned out on the banister and saw that Aelita stopped halfway on the stairs and reached for her mobile.

"Hey, sorry to be late... Hertz stopped me. Okay. Be right there, bye!"

Sissi couldn't hide satisfaction when she heard that chat. She couldn't wait to finally learn who Aelita's secret admirer is. She smiled under her nose, having a feeling to catch her red-handed. But what she couldn't know was that Aelita called to... Jeremie. Aelita ran downstairs quickly and having got out of the building, she ran to the manhole as fast as she could. Sissi ran after her, but when she reached the ground floor, Aelita was not already there. She rushed to the exit and took a look at the courtyard, hoping to spot her, unfortunately, with no luck. _"I'll find you and your boyfriend either way," _she snarled when she realized she missed her. She glanced at the courtyard once again before she went back to the dorm.

In the factory, Aelita traveled down with the elevator to the underground lab, where the rest of the group already waited for her. Jeremie was sitting in front of the screens and typing some commands. The others were sitting under the wall; they stood up together, when heavy doors opened with a screech of metal against metal. Jeremie turned in his armchair.

"Here I am. I see you're already warming up the scanners?" said Aelita.

"Yeah.. everything's set up. You can go," answered Jeremie and turned to the keyboard.

"Ladies first," he said through the intercom. The boys let Aelita and Yumi into the scanners. A few moments later the scanners' doors opened, letting Ulrich, Odd and William step in and be virtualized.

Soon they all found themselves on Lyoko in the arena of Sector 5 and walked into the corridor. The virtual world was quiet and calm. Jeremie stretched himself in the armchair with satisfaction as he watched his friends walking through the core zone to the elevator.

At the same time in the dorm, Sissi sat in her room in front of her big mirror, which, thanks to small lights surrounding it, resembled ones in celebrities' wardrobes and combed her long, dark hair. She could not get over the fact that she was so close to learning Aelita's secret and let her run away. She felt as if someone shut open door right in front of her nose. When she imagined that, her nose hurt, almost as if it really made contact with the imagined door. She was under such an impression of reality of her imagination that she leaned her face closer to her mirror and started examining her nose in search of any imperfections. As she focused her attention to her reflection, a plume of smoke emerged from the electric socket near the mirror and raised to her ear. For a moment Sissi felt as if she was electrocuted, then her vision blurred. Since then she had no longer her own will. XANA took over her mind, dictating her every move.

Jim Morales, like every afternoon on his duty in the dorm, was sitting in his room with legs on the table and was reading sumo magazines, listening to his favourite Dance and Techno. Suddenly, the door opened without knocking. Jim immediately took his feet back to the ground and muted the music when he recognized the incoming person.

"Yes, Sissi," he started mildly.

"Jim, I need you," said Sissi with an emotionless tone. "Jeremie and his friends do not respect the learning hours..."

"They aren't in their rooms? Are you sure?" Jim got interested. Usually he would not care if not the fact that it was principal's daughter who reported to him.

"Yes. Let's go, they deserve to be punished!" Sissi answered.

"I'll talk to them when they're back," said Jim indifferently.

"But I know where they are! Follow me, we'll catch them red-handed!" insisted Sissi.

"Okay, fine," Jim relented.

Sissi did not say anything, just rushed Jim and dragged him to the entrance to the sewers in the park almost by force.


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER 10**

As the mission proceeded without any problems, content Jeremie took off his glasses for a moment to clean the lenses. But when he put them back on his nose, hell broke in front of his eyes. The Superscan beeped horribly and an alert about activated tower popped up on the screen. Jeremie felt shivers going down his spine and a cool wave went to his hands.

"Oh no, not now," he muttered to himself. He saw several red triangles on the map; it was a large group of Creepers, charging right at his friends. What Jeremie feared the most had just happened. XANA was against them!

"Watch out, Creepers!" he cried, pulling his microphone closer to his lips to make sure they heard him.

Right at this moment on Lyoko the group saw a lot of monsters crawling in their direction. Soon they were surrounded from all sides. Instincts of warriors woke up in them immediately; Odd, Ulrich, Yumi and William stood in four corners of a square around Aelita; they could not let her be devirtualized, what was almost unavoidable in a fight with that number of Creepers. Odd and Yumi did their best to eliminate as much monsters as they could from the distance and make it easier to Ulrich and William. Despite their efforts, the amount of Creepers would not drop, because new ones arrived in the places of the eliminated and the fight became really tough. And although she used to rather hide behind her friends, this time Aelita was very active in a fight; she surprised the other Lyoko warriors with her skillful use of Energy Fields and agility in avoiding enemy lasers thanks to her wings. Quickly after realizing her battling skills she was let in the middle of the fight and replaced Odd, who was eliminated by an unexpected shot in his shoulder blade.

Back on Earth Jeremie was thrilled like never before. He took a few deep breaths to remain cold-minded; he knew very well that panic would be the worst solution is such situation. It did not make him feel any better when Odd climbed up to the lab and stood near him to observe the battle.

Suddenly, Odd noticed movement on a small screen where the images from the cameras in the factory were displayed.

"Jeremie, we have visitors... something's moving around here," he said. Jeremie typed quickly on the keyboard to display the image on the big screen. Odd was right. Jim and Xanafied Sissi were approaching to the elevator.

"Block the elevator, quick!" Odd ordered. With some more typing, Einstein cut off the power and stopped the elevator up the shaft.

After jumping off the rope, Sissi walked towards the elevator's cabin.

"Sissi, why did you drag me to that old factory?" Jim dawdled. "What's gone into you?"

"Silence!" said Sissi sharply.

She stepped into the elevator and pushed the "down" button. She grew mad when the elevator did not move an inch. It eventually convinced Jim that their trip to the factory was pointless.

"I didn't walk so far through some sewers to wander around this scrap yard! It's dangerous. If Jeremie and his pals really are here, they'll be in big trouble!" Jim got angry. "Get out of this elevator, who knows if it won't fall or something-" he warned Sissi and took her by her arm to pull her out, but a moment later he was brutally pushed straight onto a nearby column.

On Lyoko the fierce battle went on. The group managed to the short path to the elevator hall and gat out of the trap, but it did not improve their state; there was still a lot of monsters and they had hardly any life points left. Ulrich invented plan B.

"Me and William distract them, you take Aelita and run to the elevator!" he shouted to Yumi. Unfortunately at this moment Yumi, who lacked both her fans, did not manage to cover from a series of lasers and turned into a cloud of pixels.

"Ulrich, we won't make it! We have to run or it's over for us!" cried Aelita, who was flying and attacking from above.

A second later she fell to the ground, as she was hit for the first time. They had no other choice than run to the elevator. They jumped on it and went up, avoiding monsters' lasers.

The elevator stopped at the entrance to the celestial dome. The wall moved away and the three of them ran to the platform. Aelita opened the interface while Ulrich and William were standing a few meters from her and with their swords drawn, they were looking for new nasty surprises.

"Jeremie, it was supposed to be a picnic, not a massacre!" said Yumi when she came closer to the screen, still sore from recent hit.

"I couldn't have known..." mumbled Jeremie.

Suddenly on the Lyoko view a big red dot appeared out of nowhere. Back on the platform, Ulrich and William faced the third boy, of Ulrich's height, who was wearing a black suit with long black cloak. In both of his hands he held a gigantic axe, ready to attack. His light blue eyes were blazing red with anger and hatred.

"Guys... watch out!... It's... XANA... himself..." muttered Jeremie.

Then, he turned to Aelita, "Launch the programme, fast! He's invincible, don't waste time-"

Aelita came back to work, but she became so stressed out that she confused commands and the programme would not launch. She did not give up, though. She shook her hands like she tried to get rid of something sticky and annoying on them, and corrected whatever she did wrong. However when she wanted to make the final move, the interface shook and stopped responding. Then, a large, shining XANA symbol appeared on it.

Jeremie could see the problem. Without working interface launching the programme was not possible; what's more, he himself could not do anything due to the interface on; he couldn't even bring his friends back on Earth. They were stuck.

"There we meet again. I always wanted to fight with you in person," XANA spoke to Ulrich and waved with his axe. Ulrich managed to block the blow and stop the blade centimeters above him. He stood like that for a while until he could not bear such weight any longer and swayed; the blade fell on him and Ulrich was devirtualized. The last obstacle between XANA and Aelita was William.

"William, I did not expect you to turn to the side of those worthless brats," he said to William. "You left me... you betrayed your master... you will not escape punishment!"

"You... never... were... my... master..." gasped William with anger.

"HOW... DARE... YOU?" XANA shouted and ran at him. The duel began.

Fighting her fear, Aelita turned her head, observing how William escaped powerful blows of gigantic axe in the corner of her eye. It was easier for William to fight than to Ulrich, as his sword was much more massive. He held on for quite long; he even hit his opponent once, only to observe as his wound healed immediately. XANA was at the top of his power and invincible.

William eventually gave up due to his lack of fighting skills; he did not block a swing from above and was back on Earth sooner than he thought. From Aelita's perspective, this hit was much too awful to watch; after a while she turned and saw the virtual body of William turning into digital waste. Horrified, she anticipated _him_, still in bow after slicing William in half. Then he raised his head and stared at her with his angry look. He stood up and moved towards her; he did not run to her like to an acquisition, but walked slowly, proudly, triumphantly.

The rest of the gang on Earth surrounded the screen and observed with horror on their faces as the distance between red dot and yellow triangle was shrinking second after second.

As he lost control over the situation, Jeremie also lost control over himself. The time slowed down for him; emotions overpowered his mind and thoughts were spinning inside his head. And when he, pale and desperate, lost all hope, and his friends seemed to have lost it together with him...

The activated tower alert disappeared from the screen.

"The tower deactivated itself?" it ran through Jeremie's mind, as he noticed. He felt like an amazing power suddenly filled him; the body calmed down and his shattered mind put itself together into one piece. _"Now... is our only chance..."_

He slowly reached for the microphone and pulled it closer to him. Then he said one sentence only, but so calmly that everybody around were impressed.

"Aelita, launch the programme. _Now_."

He somehow transferred his calmness to Aelita as well. She came back to reality, focused for a while and turned to the interface, from which XANA's eye disappeared in the meantime. She turned an auxiliary subsystem and to confirm what was about to happen, she lay her hand on the interface to do the authorization. The interface disappeared.

"AAELITAAA.!..." cried XANA happily all of a sudden, so loudly that he could be heard on Earth as well. The group in front of the supercomputer observed as all XANA's activity was dying out and Replikas were destroyed one by one.

The third key was doing its job.

XANA kept on walking, but with every step he was even weaker. When he was one step in front of Aelita, he swayed and fell to his knees. His eyes, which did not glow red anymore and turned back to their light blue colour, stared at her with pure admiration, the only way they could.

"Ae.. Aelita..." he mumbled with a weak voice, almost whispering, "thank you soo much... it was such a pleasure to meet you..."

She must have looked very proud as she stood over him if he tried to arouse mercy in such a way. In vain. Third key had been launched and there was no turning back. It was his end.

"I'd like to thank you for all, too... for those four wonderful afternoons... flowers... and most of all – for care," she said quietly. What an irony. She did not know whether she should thank him or not. Four days would not pay back years of suffering he caused. But these particular four afternoons were quite pleasant, so she felt she owed him thanks.

He was quiet, but he was not over yet. He stared at her for a moment with his eyes wide open, as if he was seeking light. Then he stood up and recited dryly, like a robot.

"A world without danger accomplished. It was a distinction to serve the family of Schaeffer."

He came closer to the edge of the platform. He closed his eyes and shut his mouth and fell down into the digital void.

"Your time is over," Aelita whispered. She looked down and observed as his virtual body disappeared into thin air as it was falling.

A few floors above, Jim eventually lost his patience.

"Whoever is there, show up!" he shouted and his voice echoed in the hall.

Then Sissy regained consciousness. She swayed a little and looked around.

"Where am I? What am I doing here?" she asked.

She realized that there was a black hole in her memory about what happened between the moment she was sitting in front of her mirror until now.

"Jim? What are we doing here?" she asked him.

Jim, noticing a change in Sissi's behaviour, immediately demanded explanations.

"I'd expect answers form you, dear. You led us here."

Sissi could not believe in what had happened. How was it possible that she did not remember anything?

"You were saying that Jeremie Belpois and his pals are here. Is it true?"

Sissi recalled something. She remembered herself spying on Aelita after classes. But how did she know that Aelita would be in the factory?

"Enough," said Jim as Sissi was silent, unable to answer him. "We're going back to school. I wasted enough time anyway. Your father won't be happy if he finds out I left the dorm without supervision for so long." He walked to the ropes to climb up.

"Wait. They're here. I'm sure of it," Sissi said.


	11. Chapter 11

**CHAPTER**** 11**

Jeremie automatically launched the rematerialization programme and jumped off the armchair. His friends followed him to the scanner room.

Aelita was about to leave the scanner when they arrived there. She looked rather shocked than happy because of what had just happened. All of them shared the same feelings as they were hardly aware that XANA had become history. They had been waiting for this moment almost three years. Their goal was accomplished, but it could not do without unbelievable suffering and fear; they also risked losing their lives at times. Despite that, they did not give up, neither to XANA, nor to their weaknesses. Their hard work and sacrifice had been finally rewarded. But there was not time to such thoughts; they made it to the end safe and sound, that was what mattered the most and what they could feast together. Instead, they were standing there in the scanner room, silent and sad, overwhelmed by the importance of the moment.

Aelita leaned against the wall of a scanner.

"We did it," she whispered with an almost invisible smile.

"We did IT!" shouted Ulrich with joy.

Suddenly, happiness got into all of them; they began to shout joyfully, clap their hands, congratulate each other good job, shake hands and do all the things connected with a collective euphoria.

"Let's go, it's party time!" said William and walked to the elevator. That was when Odd recalled something.

"Wait, there are Jim and Sissi still up there! We have to wait until they leave!" he noticed.

"Let's go through the basement," proposed Yumi.

All six of them climbed up the ladder and left the lab. They arrived at the boiler room.

"Sissi!" it hit Jeremie. He reminded himself he had some bills to even with her. She arrived at the factory in perfect timing. He had an idea.

"OK, listen," he turned to Odd, Ulrich, Yumi and William, "get out another way, go to the dorm and... you know what to do there." He winked meaningfully and they nodded and took a turn in a corridor to exit the factory.

"Aelita, come with me," he said to her, disoriented with that weird course of things. He took her hand and she followed him to the main hall.

Meanwhile, Sissi stood close to the entrance to the elevator and looked around, squeezing the camera in one hand. Jim hung around the hall, hoping to find someone there. Eventually he came back to the elevator. His supplies of patience ran out.

"Sissi, it doesn't make sense. You must've made all that up..."

Suddenly, a sound of footsteps and quiet conversation reached their ears. Jim acted like a special force agent; he showed Sissi to hide behind the elevator and himself stood right behind the corner to observe the surroundings. The sounds were even louder when Sissi heard a loud, gleeful laugh. She recognized it immediately. She wanted to step from behind the elevator and see who was Aelita's companion and take a picture, but Jim held her in place and silenced. He was hiding constantly, not wanting to be noticed. In the end, in the distance he saw two familiar silhouettes.

Aelita and Jeremie were walking down the hall, which was lit with beams of light coming from shattered windows and full of shadows of steel columns. Aelita kept asking Jeremie why did he want her to follow him, but he would not answer. He was like charmed, not responding either to his name, nor to another question. He was silent, looking at one particular point in the space in front of him, the elevator, to be exact. He was entirely concentrated on what he wanted to do. He had to make sure Sissi would see him.

Suddenly, to his surprise, Aelita poked him in his arm and shouted "Tag!", laughing loudly. She managed to run a few steps away before Jeremie woke up and started chasing her. He could not let her escape too far. He caught her near a concrete column near the elevator, but not in purpose if making her tag him. He took her by her arm and turned to face her. She tried to get out of his grip and run, but Jeremie held her so tightly that she had to give up.

Just like the other evening he looked her straight in the eyes, as if he wanted to confess something. Suddenly the sun hid behind a cloud and it became dark and cold in the factory. As if in response to this change, Jeremie's head was downcast. His long fringe covered his face and his glasses hung at the tip of his nose. He had a lot of important stuff to tell her, but(as it was his habit) he hesitated and puzzled. Aelita freed one of her hands from his grip and brushed away his fringe off his face and adjusted his glasses. When she looked in his eyes again, she noticed they became wet and glossy.

"Hey Jeremie, what's going on with you?" she asked, seeing that he was losing control over himself. Jeremie sighed deeply.

"I... I just can't believe it..."

"Believe in what?" Aelita smiled. "That we freed the world from XANA? It'll be hard for us to get used to that thought. For me too."

"No," he answered. "I just can't believe that... that you're free... that you're not in danger anymore..."

Aelita was surprised with such answer.

"I was afraid all the time we fought XANA. Of many things," he added.

"Everybody had fears, that's normal," she said. "You can't imagine how frightened I was then, by the interface..."

"Yeah... B-But you know what was the worst...?" Jeremie's voice broke. "The fear of losing any of you. Especially you, Aelita. It was... terrible to live and be aware that something wished you death... I was afraid that you won't come back... sometimes. Today... I had such moment as well."

Jeremie spoke slowly, seeking for appropriate words and fought with himself, trying to calm himself down. As he spit his worries out, he blushed crimson. He was not used to such sincere confessions; he found talking about his feelings extremely hard. Aelita knew that too well. Therefore she was proud of him that he eventually broke his boundaries and told her what was bothering him for a long time. Not considering for too long, she grabbed him behind his neck and hugged tightly.

"It'll be fine now," she whispered. "You won't be afraid anymore."

"Yes, isn't it great?" he whispered back.

The sun emerged from behind the cloud and bright sunlight filled the hall. It lit them and spread wonderful warmth around them.

The rest of the words stuck in Jeremie's throat; he shivered a bit from emotion and his eyes filled with tears. He completely forgot about Sissi and Jim; he was too preoccupied by the fact that Aelita was close to him, safe and sound, in spite of all XANA's attempts to kill her. She was a living proof of his failure, who was laughing straight in his face...

He thought he would go crazy because of relief which filled him entirely at that moment. Finally, not being able to do anything else, he hugged her back.

Sissi and Jim emerged from behind the elevator.

"Aelita, Jeremie! What are you do..." Jim asked harshly. He stopped in the middle of the sentence when he saw them hugging each other, not paying any attention to him. When he realized what was going on, he smiled widely in admiration.

Sissi was instead thunderstruck when she saw them together. She was not even mad, what usually happened when things were not going the way she wished, she was just too shocked by a discovery she made. "Taelia was right," she thought. How could she be so blind to something everybody around found obvious? Her mind rearranged suddenly as if Jeremie and Aelita broke a dam built inside her head. She looked half admiring, half thrilled at the two, who she gossiped about just a short time ago. It ached her inside when she realized that she just ruined her reputation. Her insides boiled as she looked at the happy couple, which was standing in blinding sunlight.

Soon Jeremie released Aelita from his hug. As she did not want to move away from him, he put his shoulder around her waist. That was when he looked at Sissi meaningfully. She noticed that instead of usual, pale, weak eyes of computer nerd a pair of ice cold, blue eyes of a warrior were stuck at her; a warrior who was ready to defend the one close to his heart from wicked plots of the enemies. Sissi mentally backed off as she convinced herself of power which were hidden in that guy, who she clearly underestimated. And she would probably stay put under the impression Jeremie created if not Jim, who eventually came back to reality.

"Kids... Under normal conditions I'd have to report you to the principal, call your parents and give you a few hours of detention for hanging about an old, dangerous factory. But if that's what it was all about..." he smiled to Jeremie and Aelita, "then I forgive you. Which doesn't mean I won't keep my eye on you!" he underlined.

"Thanks, Jimbo," said Aelita.

"But I'll have to seriously consider your behaviour, Miss Delmas!" Jim said to Sissi.

"Forgive her, too. She learned a lot already," said Jeremie, looking at Sissi again.

"Ah, I'm too good for you," Jim whispered. "Okay, enough of this romantic play, let's go back to the dorm!" he ordered loudly.

They went outside the factory, Sissi noticed she was still squeezing her mobile in her hand. With one move of her thumb she opened it and the screen inside came to life thanks to an animated wallpaper. She closed the phone with a loud clap and looked at Jeremie and Aelita, who were walking a few steps in front of her. Aelita was holding her hand on his shoulder now, as if she wanted to cheer Jeremie up. Sissi again stared at a shiny case of the phone, wondering what she actually wanted to use it for.


	12. Chapter 12

**CHAPTER 12**

The four marched from the factory and walked onto a shadowy, empty courtyard, which was a few steps from the entrance to the dorm. Suddenly Jeremie's phone beeped shortly in his pocket. Jeremie pulled it fast and read the message. He stopped walking; noticing his reaction, Aelita gave him a questioning look.

"Odd sent me a message, we're supposed to meet in the rec room," he explained quickly and called Jim and Sissi, who were already under the arches. Hearing him, they froze and turned to him.

"Hey, would you like to go to the rec room for a moment?" he asked.

Jim shrugged, as he did not care. After a moment of hesitation Sissi also decided to join them. They followed him without protests. Content of their cooperation, Jeremie calmed unconvinced Aelita with a mysterious smile and led her to the rec room.

As they arrived at the room's door, Jeremie let Aelita open it. She laid her hand on the handle and pushed it. When she stood in the open door, singing voices came from the inside:

"Happy birthday to you..."

Surprised Aelita stood stunned on the doorstep. A small crowd awaited her inside. It consisted mostly of eight-graders, but there were also a few younger and older students. With some of them Aelita even did not talk once. She knew them only as faces from the corridor and the yard. Therefore more she was touched when she went inside and stood among them. Disoriented, she turned to Jeremie, who was singing together with William, Odd, Ulrich and Yumi, who appeared out of nowhere.

"...to you! And to who? Aelita!" Odd shouted at the end.

Her friends led her to a table where a small birthday cake with several candles already waited for her. Aelita blew all of them at once with a loud applause from the guests.

"Best wishes," said Jeremie, smiling widely.

"Best wishes!" repeated the others after him.

Although Aelita was suspecting that her friends were preparing a surprise for her since morning, she did not expect it to be a birthday party! Then she remembered what Jeremie promised her a long time ago... that he would pick her a date of her birthday...

She wanted to say anything, thank them, whatever. At first try she just sighed from emotion, not being able to speak.

"You... you're crazy!" she gasped, putting all her joy and surprise into one sentence. She felt better, seeing her friends so enthusiastic.

The crowd around her waved. All guests wanted to follow an old dorm rule and wish her as well.

"Easy, there's a queue!" Odd shouted. The guests stood behind each other without protests. A lot of best wishes were said and shakes and hugs given.

Only Sissi stood under the wall and wished she hadn't followed Jeremie. She looked at him, who was triumphant today together with Taelia, whose careful glance she was under. She felt lonely without Herve and Nicholas, who left her to wish Aelita happy birthday. She wanted to escape from there and hide from an even bigger humiliation. But she calculated quickly that she would make an even worse impression if she left; all in all, she was stuck in the rec room. She left with most of the guests, who headed back to their dorms and interrupted work there.

The party went on. The students sat in groups on the coaches and armchairs. In front of the TV there was a heated discussion on which of many TV series aired at that time should be watched. The others were either at foosball table or near the ping-pong table, which was occupied by Jim; he finally found a worthy opponent in a person of a girl from tenth grade...

When the last people said their wishes to Aelita, the gang could finally sit in peace and finish their pieces of birthday cake and let Aelita unpack her present. They impatiently observed as she was opening a inconspicuous white envelope. The closer she was to open it, the wider were the grins on Ulrich's, Odd's and Yumi's faces. Jeremie showed the signs of increasing nervousness. Finally, Aelita pulled a birthday card out of the envelope. She smiled when she saw it was almost entirely covered with autographs of her fellow students and friends. She put it on the table so that its inside was visible. But there was one more card inside the envelope. A look at it itself caused Aelita to straighten up on the coach from amazement. She pulled it out with shaking hands.

"Oh my, Disneyland tickets!" she said with emotion and leaned inertly on the coach. The others shook their heads in approval. William whistled.

"But... wait, it's for two!" she added when she took a closer look at the tickets. She smiled with satisfaction and turned to Jeremie, who blushed madly.

"I remember y-you saying you n-never been there..." he stammered sheepishly, "so I thought that maybe we could go there t-together... if you want to..."

"Sure I do!" she said joyfully and hugged him, almost causing him to fall over and his glasses to fall off his nose. The others could just sigh and be happy with her.

The gang spent the rest of the evening on a pleasant chat. This involved horrifying but eventually funny theme park stories(these were Odd's attempts of scaring his friends, especially Aelita) as well as memories of battles in the virtual worlds. It could not do without tales of voyages across the ocean of the Internet and tales of missions in various parts of the globe. They were wondering together how their life without all these doses of adrenaline and adventure would look like. Yumi said that they had life in front of them, which writes weirder scenarios than those movies are made upon.

"Movies, you say?" Odd repeated. "Then film based on our biography would be a world hit."

Everybody sighed. Their life was a story the best science-fiction writers would probably not come up with.

"Today's mission was like horror," said Jeremie.

"But it had an happy-end," noticed Ulrich.

"And I thought happy-ends were so boring and cliché... But you know what, I'm so glad we came back from there safe and sound," Odd made an unexpected reflection.

"It was close, to tell the truth," Aelita trembled.

Suddenly something clicked and flashed. There was a loud "hey!" William covered his eyes, blinded by a flash of light. From behind the coach emerged Milly and Tamiya, who attended the party since very beginning and wee allowed to take photos.

"Come on, Tamiya, until they're surprised," Milly muttered to her friend behind the camera.

"Girls, how 'bout a small photo session, huh?" Odd said when he recognized school journalists.

"No prob, but without you, Odd. You butt in everywhere," Tamiya protested.

"Exactly, Whose birthday party is it, your or Aelita's?" asked Milly ironically, pointing at Aelita. Everybody burst out laughing.

"Aelita, tell them, do I really butt in everywhere?" Odd asked her, looking touched with such accusations.

"Maybe... they exaggerate a little," Aelita smiled. Odd grinned at Milly and Tamiya, who gasped "Family!"

"Enough teasing, we want photos!" Yumi interrupted.

"Sure. Jeremie, where're you hiding?" Aelita agreed and lay her shoulder over Jeremie's neck. Jeremie straightened up fast and adjusted his glasses.

"Smile, please!" said Tamiya before making a photo.

They kept on posing and having fun, like a normal gang of friends who celebrated the beginning of the weekend. That night nothing could spoil fun to these teenagers, in whose hands just a few days before laid the fate of the world...

It was already late in the evening. It was almost completely dark outside. The remains of sunlight lit the sky above the park. Chilly air was coming through open window in Aelita's room, which darkness was lit only by a small lamp on the desk. Jeremie and Aelita were sitting on Aelita's bed and still had a lot to say to each other.

"Incredible, who would suspect XANA would refer to me with such respect? And that I'd be able to get to know his alter ego, the one my father wanted me to know," Aelita said.

"Crazy idea indeed," muttered Jeremie, who still had in memory his suspicions about XANA in love.

"You really thought he fell in love with me?" she asked, sensing irony in his voice.

"And how would you explain the bouquet and the letter?" he said, pointing at the basket standing near the wardrobe, still containing remains of once beautiful bunch of flowers. They looked at each other and laughed loudly.

"I don't think he was programmed to do so. Which proves he was an amazing A.I."

"I guess you're right. That's sick, we talk about him so calmly, even laugh at him, when he tried to kill us all," Jeremie noticed.

"We know very well that deep down he hadn't changed at all. He stayed stubborn, cunning and keen on manipulating people. He really did not give up on taking over the world. Even if it wouldn't be him to rule."

Jeremie raised an eyebrow, having no idea what she meant. Noticing his surprise, Aelita decided to tell him about a dream she had last night, a dream of power and domination over the Internet that XANA offered her.

As he heard her story, Jeremie shook his head in disbelief.

"And, what did you think?" he asked shortly.

"He was very convincing," Aelita admitted. "But... he didn't realize that I already chose life on Earth a long time ago."

"Although he's partly right," Jeremie noticed, "Life on Earth is risky. Accidents, aging... school..." he said, giggling at the last one.

"I thought of it loads of times since I was materialized for the first time," Aelita answered him. "That's what he tried to persuade me. But... he was just an A.I. He couldn't understand that a world without smells, tastes, touch... without friends..." she looked at him meaningfully, "is not for me."

Jeremie blushed. Her common sense and wisdom impressed him. How could he not trust her? He felt silly.

"Your father would be proud of you," he concluded.

"Of you, too. Of us all!" she smiled. "It's unbelievable, we'll really be able to bring him to Earth! When are we starting?" she asked enthusiastically.

Jeremie sighed. "I don't know..." he said in a worried tone. "One think is sure, it's going to be harder than in your case. Remember that your father is probably being chased by special forces. We'll have to make a plan to ensure him safety here on Earth."

"Perhaps he'll need a new identity, like me," said Aelita, getting the picture.

They both fell silent. Somehow till now Franz Hopper's comeback seemed to them as so unreal and distant perspective that they did not consider its consequences. Now, when it became possible they realized their problems would not be limited to finding materialization key. They would have to tackle even more obstacles to let him lead a normal life when he comes in flesh and blood in a scanner.

"It'd be nice if we could live in the Hermitage again," Aelita dreamed, staring in the ceiling.

"It can be done. According to papers in the city hall your father is still the owner of the Hermitage," Jeremie answered.

Then they heard sounds of footsteps and door creaking coming from the corridor. Jim was doing an evening inspection. They could hear him ordering to shut down the lights and go to sleep. Having realized he had little time, Jeremie stood up and walked to the door. Aelita followed him.

"I'm outta here, Jim won't like it if he finds me here so late," he said nervously, looking at Aelita.

"We can tell we're studying together," Aelita made up quickly.

"It didn't work last time, besides you heard him, he's going to "keep an eye on us", whatever it means," he reminded. "I'd better go now-"

His determination weakened when he saw misery in Aelita's green eyes. He felt powerless when he confronted that look, sincerely expressing that she was sad to see him leave. He wanted to cheer her up, _there's another day tomorrow_, there were so much pleasant moments together awaiting them. He leaned in and whispered "Goodnight," almost kissing her in her ear.

"Goodnight, and thank you for the birthday party, present, everything," she whispered back.

"You welcome," he answered.

Seeing a smile on her face again, Jeremie felt relieved. He sneaked out of her room quickly and closed the door behind him quietly.

Aelita felt as if a strange but pleasant shiver went down her body, and it did not just due to cold air in the room. She grinned to herself.

A moment later Jim fell into the room.

"Miss Stones, the only girl on the floor prepared to sleep. The others should follow your example. Close the window, it's freezing cold here."

Yeah, I know, I will right now," she said.

"Goodnight," said Jim. The door closed and Jim's footsteps faded away.

Feeling a sudden flow of energy, Aelita jumped out of her bed again and closed the window. She did not want to sleep at all; she turned off the lamp and taking Mr. Puck, she sat on the bed and wondered, staring at stars which were appearing on a dark blue sky.

THE END

A/N: Yes, this is the end of my story. After I wrote it and first published, I read many other fanfictions, also several "season 5"'s, and I changed my mind about the original ending a little bit. I just got over it. I once considered writing my own sort of season 5, but finally decided not to. I just... don't have time and ideas for it anymore. Sorry, we writers have real life too. And in my case, it is quite absorbing right now. ;) Anyway, I hope you liked this story and at least partially understood my frustrations 2 years ago. Back then, it was a real relief to spit them all out.

Thank you very much for reading. 


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